For something that began in such a personal way, The Lewis Foundation has grown into a charity that benefits thousands of cancer patients across most of the Midlands every day.
Founded by Lorraine and Lee Lewis, The Lewis Foundation delivers around 2,000 gift packs each month to 17 hospitals. The packs include essentials, such as toiletries and underwear, and non- essentials such as books, headphones and craft sets for individuals diagnosed with any cancer from newly diagnosed to end of life care, and which they might find difficult to access themselves, or which they may not be able to afford.
Even those who are being treated as out-patients have a range of gifts to choose from each time they visit the hospital for treatment or an appointment.
The idea started when Lee’s mum was receiving cancer treatment. Seeing the strain that put on the family, particularly after Lee’s father died during his wife’s course of treatment, Lee and Lorraine began to check in on other patients on the wards to make sure they had everything they needed.
Lorraine said: “When someone is being treated for cancer, they spend a lot of time alone, probably a bit scared and upset. If you’ve been rushed into hospital you might not have had time to pack and bag and you’re worrying about having the basic toiletries and a change of underwear.
“From just checking in on people on the ward and asking if they needed anything, we saw how much it meant to them, and the idea was born.”
Lee and Lorraine set about sourcing donations of goods or money to help fill the gift bags, packing them and delivering themselves at first. Lorraine competed in a Tough Mudder event and raised enough to buy 16 televisions for individual rooms in the inpatient cancer unit, Talbot Butler Ward, at Northampton General. Before long, they were delivering to hospitals across Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Leicestershire.
Today, there is a core team working alongside volunteers and hundreds of regular supporters, and the charity operates out of a logistics centre in Grange Park. Patients are given a tick list of gifts that are available and no donations are taken in return for gifts.
Instead, the local community, from individuals to multinational businesses, have rallied to do what they can to help.
Amazon regularly donates items that have been returned or are end-of-line, all new and unused, either to pass on to patients, use in the cafes, or to sell in Outlet, The Lewis Foundation’s charity shop in The Grosvenor Centre in Northampton, as does Stephensons Online, the online beauty products retailer based in Swan Valley, which has worked closely with The Lewis Foundation for some years to pass on any surplus stock.
“Businesses support us with fundraising and donations, and also provide volunteers to come in and help us make up the gift packs – our packing rota is booked well into next year thanks to the amount of people who want to help us,” said Lorraine.
“We have people in retirement villages knitting blankets for us, and a lot of people write letters to patients that we put in the gift packs. People are so kind, the community does so much to help and it’s things like that which make people undergoing cancer treatment feel like there’s someone who cares about them.
“That said, we can’t always rely on fundraising and donations, times are tough for everyone and most charities are having to find new ways to raise money. Having the shop and two cafés makes an enormous difference to us and to the people who use them.
“Firstly, we’ve got a charity shop with a twist, where everything is new and unused and available at affordable prices. And they’re not just new, they are items that would probably go to landfill otherwise, perfectly good items but because they are discontinued or returns, they are surplus to requirements.”
Some donations, including the likes of coffee beans and quality teas, find their way into The Lewis Foundation’s cafes at the Northampton Museum and the Elgar Community Centre in Upton. All proceeds go into the charity so it can continue to make a difference to so many cancer patients’ lives.
“When it became clear how important the gift packs were to patients we began to get more and more enquiries and we now deliver to hospitals in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, CambridgeshireandStoke,”saidLorraine.“Thehospitalsletusknow what they want and we make up the packs and deliver on a regular basis. We have also made special deliveries when we are asked to provide emergency essentials for someone who needs them.
“The support we get from the nurses and staff is fantastic. During Covid we thought we’d have to stop, but we found a way to make it work by isolating items for enough time that they were safe and the staff would take delivery and distribute them for us.
“We saw from our own experience how difficult life can be when you’re in hospital with cancer. It means that person can’t work, and there’s extra expense for their families in terms of travel and time off, and all at a time when you spend a lot of hours on your own and feeling vulnerable.
“I don’t think we could have imagined, when we started, where The Lewis Foundation would end up. I think we’d have been terrified, to be honest, but it’s clear how much it’s needed. One of the donations that really pushed us on in the early days was money left to us by a patient who had used our services before he died. That was when we realised that we are making a difference and that what we do matters to people.”
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