This Remember a Chairty Week, former Chair and now Patron of Hft Richard Barber OBE, has shared his story about Lucinda’s lifetime of care with Hft and how important gifts in Wills are to the organisation.
“This is Remember a Charity Week and I am writing to ask if you would consider leaving a gift in your Will to this remarkable organisation, Hft.
I do so only a few months after my sister Lucinda, resident at Hft Gloucestershire, celebrated her 80th birthday and her 62nd year with Hft. This was a major milestone not just in her life but also for our family and Hft. It was a celebration of all the care, love and support the dedicated staff have given her over the years to make her feel secure and fulfilled.
Her life expectancy when she was born would probably have been about 45 and now, as she powers through her 81st year, she has found in Hft a lifetime of devoted care and a community of friends and carers who have sustained a quality of life for her that would previously have been thought unimaginable.
Today, Lucinda is blind and wheelchair bound, but her personality remains completely intact – curious, outspoken, funny and engaged with the world and with her friends.
Every week she still goes with her carers into Stroud to shop, have lunch and enjoy the independence and companionship that has always meant so much to her. For many years these visits were made with her long-time boyfriend and fellow Hft resident Robert, who himself was in the very first group to join the new Home Farm Trust in 1962.
The kindness, patience and dedication of the staff continue to shape Lucinda’s life and that of our family in ways that are beyond praise.
It is central to everything Hft stands for that every person we support should also be happy and fulfilled, and that their personalities should be encouraged to flourish.
I remember visiting our Bishop Stortford service during my Chairmanship and hearing about one of the people supported there, Peter, who had Down’s Syndrome. He loved wearing funny hats and marching up and down. One day, at a staff meeting there, those attending saw Peter marching slowly past the window wearing a cowboy hat. A few minutes later, he marched slowly back the other way, wearing a feathered headdress.
Then he came past for a third time wearing a police officer’s hat and the jacket of one of the meeting’s attendees, and the entire gathering dissolved into laughter. That moment captured something essential about Hft: the joy, the individuality, the freedom for people to be themselves. Peter lived a long, happy life and at the time of his death in 2012, he was thought to have been the oldest person in the country with Down’s Syndrome.
These stories – Lucinda‘s, Robert’s, Peter‘s – show why an organisation like Hft matters so deeply. From those small beginnings in 1962, Hft today supports about 2,500 people all over the country. More than ever, we are living out our Founders’ vision of putting the people we support at the centre of everything we do and living the best lives they possibly can.
The number of learning disabled people continues to grow, and with it the need for spaces where they can thrive.
My father had played a significant role in the early days of Hft in expanding its reach, raising the funds to start a new service in Sheffield. Since then, my brother and I have been proud to continue the tradition of our family’s involvement.
For innumerable families like our own, Hft has been a lifeline. And one of the most powerful ways in which you can ensure that lifeline continues is by leaving a gift in your Will. Every gift, no matter the size, is valuable to us and can help future generations of learning disabled people find the same happiness, independence, security and opportunity that Lucinda has enjoyed throughout her long life.
A gift in your Will is a powerful way to ensure that learning disabled people continue to be supported with dignity, sensitivity, and compassion long after we are gone. It is a way of saying: I believe in this future. My brother and I will certainly be doing so.
I do hope that you will consider leaving a gift in your Will to Hft. Your kindness could become someone’s first opportunity to live the life that they choose for themselves.”
To find out more about leaving a gift in your Will visit our gift in Wills webpage or contact our friendly Gifts in Wills team by emailing GiftsinWills@hft.org.uk or calling 0117 906 1699. Thank you.
