HEREFORD Crematorium has donated £14,000 to charities, as a result of support from bereaved families.

The British Heart Foundation and Acorns Children’s Hospice have each received £7000 from the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management (ICCM).

Mel Hall, the area fundraiser for Acorns Children’s Hospice, mentioned the charity’s extreme gratitude and thanks towards the crematorium for their donation. With sustainability being a “priority” of the charity, the metal recycling scheme is an innovative way to raise money to help them continue their important work in caring for the 750 children and families they support each year.

She also “recognises and gives thanks to all of the bereaved families who have supported the scheme during what must be an extremely difficult time.” and that the “legacy their loved ones have left” will make a “very real difference” to the children and family of children who are life limited, and life threatened.

Hereford Crematorium is involved in a metals recycling scheme run by the ICCM which allows valuable metal items, like artificial joints, to be recovered during the cremation process and melted down for recycling.

This process means that Hereford Crematorium can make annual awards to deserving causes. This year the charities are the British Heart Foundation and Acorns Children’s Hospice which have both received a generous £7000 donation towards their essential work.

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Since 2011, Hereford Crematorium has “been able to donate more than £167,000 to local charities” for their hard work and dedication thanks to the metal recycling scheme, said John Gibbon who is the direct services manager at the crematorium. “Being part of the Metals Recycling Scheme is a gesture of kindness and we hope that such contributions to good causes are a comfort to those who have lost loved ones.”

West Midlands fundraising manager at the British Heart Foundation, Gavin Daniels, also expressed their thanks for being chosen as one of this year's charities. For more than 60 years this charity has turned ideas that “seemed like science fiction” into lifesaving treatments and cures. He commented, “It is only thanks to support like this that we can keep research going and discover the treatments and cures of the future."

The metals recycling service is provided at no extra cost to crematoria that have signed up to the scheme and, the metals are never recycled without the next of kin’s permission.