Saint Catherine's: "It's been a really difficult year" on the Yorkshire Coast
Saint Catherine's has been reflecting on the past 12 months of the Coronavirus pandemic on the Yorkshire Coast.
A Yorkshire Coast charity has been reflecting on the past 12 months of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Saint Catherine's says they have had to make a lot of changes due to Government guidelines.
Susan Stephenson, who is from the charity, said:
"It's been a really difficult year. I think the same for everybody really in lots of different ways but at Saint Catherine's as a year, it's just been like no other year before really. It's been very challenging but what we have noticed is that everybody's just really pulled together and that's what's made it possible for us to carry on doing what we do throughout this year.
"We've had to make a lot of changes obviously there's been a lot of Government guidance to follow especially being a health care provider. We've been able to carry on looking after patients all throughout the year both in the hospice itself and in their own homes out in the community. We've also been able to continue visiting albeit restricted.
"When there was the first lockdown everything just stopped overnight; so we had to cancel our face-to-face fundraising, all of our events had to be stopped and our charity shops closed as well. We have 11 of those and that's been one of the biggest challenges actually with income because they bring in around a million pounds a year normally.
"What we've had to do is think about other ways and ask people to help us. What we've seen this year is that the community really have done that for us and they've been absolutely amazing thinking up different ways; people have done things like sponsored walks, bike rides, head shaves, they've done cake bakes and have just sold them from the end of their driveways.
"We've just got those initial roadmap dates in our minds. We're thinking about things throughout the year; we have our sunrise walk in September every year, we're hoping that we might be able to do some sort of group event for that and we're looking at the possibility of a summer fair. It's nice to be able to try and plan but we're doing it very cautiously."