According to Cancer Research, every two minutes someone is diagnosed with cancer in the UK. Since the 1990’s incidence rates for all cancers combined have increased by around 12%. Cancer can affect anyone, and most of us have been touched by it, know someone who has had it, or have sadly lost a loved one to it. My best friend, and former one time colleague at Wilson Browne Solicitors, Graham Hill died of skin cancer 8 years ago. He left behind four children.

February 4th is World Cancer Day, a day set aside on a global basis to raise awareness and to improve education, hoping to drive personal, collective and government action. 

On a local scale I have, over the last year, come to know The Lewis Foundation. Founder Lorraine Lewis will be featured on my #linkedinlive on 4th February, at 4pm, so that we can tell her story. Please find & follow me on there https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinrogersdisputesolver or catch the re-run if you can. 

Every week they source, package and hand deliver – even through Covid – free gifts and support packs to adult cancer patients in hospital. The packs include things that they might find difficult to buy, have forgotten, or run out of. Imagine how isolated they are, and how that gift is received!

I struggle to think of a more consistent example on a local scale of the kindness of strangers. A single gift costs £3.60. Staggeringly, despite Covid, over 21,000 gifts were delivered to those in hospital since the first lockdown. It is so hard to comprehend! 

If you know me you will perhaps know that in my spare time I am an (extremely!) amateur musician. In 1991 Billy Bragg released a song called Tank Park Salute, for his father who died of lung cancer. I am grateful to my dear friend John Griff of JG Media Services who, together with help from my new friends at Sony (who have been kind on the licensing!) has worked with me on our ‘lockdown charm’ version of this song, available to stream from 4th Feb on Amazon / Spotify / Apple Music. It is our way of raising awareness for The Lewis Foundation, and hopefully some funds, as well as a tribute to those lost, those who fight, and to the memories made and yet to come. Give it a listen, please, and if you can give anything, or raise awareness that would be so special. They are doing incredible things at such a lonely time for those in hospital, providing cheer, company, distraction and kindness. We salute them, and you, for your help.

Kevin & John.

https://www.thelewisfoundation.co.uk/

In their own words....At The Lewis Foundation we source, package and hand deliver free gift packs to adult cancer patients in hospital and the community weekly items they might find difficult to buy themselves or simply cannot afford. It can be a sad, frightening and lonely experience for individuals undergoing cancer treatment. For many people in hospital and the community, our volunteers are their only regular visitors.The Lewis Foundation has grown from delivering 80 gift packs to one hospital, to delivering over 2,500 to seven hospitals in the Midlands per month.They are Northampton General Hospital, BMI Three Shires Northampton, Kettering Hospital, Bedford Hospital, Luton & Dunstable Hospital, Leicester Royal Infirmary and Milton Keynes University Hospital Trust.