Charity

Chestnut Tree House

Chestnut Tree House is the children’s hospice for Sussex and South East Hampshire. Thanks to support from the local community, children and families who know they don’t have long together have the chance to live life to the full and say goodbye in the way that is right for them.

On a visit to Chestnut Tree House, kids can be astronauts for the day in the multi-sensory room, discover creepy crawlies on a woodland walk, or form their very own pop group in the music room. It is a place where parents can just be parents, and not carers, and where siblings have people to talk to who understand.

As well as care provided at the House, nurses visit families at home, taking children out to explore their local community or simply giving tired families and carers the chance to take a well-earned break.

Then, when the time comes, Chestnut Tree House helps families say goodbye, in whatever way feels right for them, at home or in the hospice itself. They offer ongoing bereavement support for the whole family.

The generosity of the local community makes this happen. Very little of the £4.6 million needed every year to provide hospice care for local children comes from central government. The rest comes from fundraising, gifts in wills, shops, the Chestnut Tree House lottery and volunteering.

Kit Wilson Trust

The Kit Wilson Trust for Animal Welfare was established over 35 years ago. A cornerstone of the Trust’s founding policy then, as now, was to promote the spaying and neutering of pets. Animals rescued by the Trust are fortunate that they remain with us until homed. Our Animal Rescue Centre in Hadlow Down, near Uckfield, provides a base for the animal rescue and re-homing work. Over the years, the Rescue Centre has also become a permanent home to many animals that it is not possible or desirable to re-home; these include horses, semi-feral cats, goats, birds, and small mammals.

Funds are raised mainly with the generous support of individual donations, legacies, local fund-raising volunteers, animal sponsors and our charity shops in Uckfield, Hailsham and Heathfield.