The Garden Centre Group’s 140 garden centres is supporting Marie Curie’s Blooming Great Tea Party initiative this month.

Centres are organising tea parties, putting the kettle on and serving bespoke Marie Curie cakes as part of the ‘Gardens for Good’ partnership which aims to raise over £500,000 in two years for the charity which provides care to people with terminal illnesses in their own homes and in its nine hospices.

As well as inviting the public into the garden centres to share a cuppa and participate in ‘Blooming Great’ activities, all of the garden centre restaurants will be running a promotion on tea and cakes. From June 20-29 for every ‘Tea and Cake for Two’ purchased for £4.95, the Garden Centre Group will donate 25p to Marie Curie.

All the money raised from the Blooming Great Tea Party activity will help Marie Curie Nurses to provide more free care to people with terminal illnesses in their own homes meaning they can continue to enjoy and benefit from their garden.

Susie McCarthy, Charity Champion at the Brighton Garden Centre said: “I’m organising a Blooming Great Tea Party this June because I personally have a strong reason for supporting Marie Curie. My dad was diagnosed with cancer last May and died just over a week later. It all happened so quickly, and was such a shock, that we didn’t have time to get the care in place that my dad deserved. 

"Our fundraising at the garden centre will help give families the support they need – having a Marie Curie Nurse would have made such a difference to our last days with dad.”

Fabian French, Director of Fundraising, at Marie Curie said: “The money raised from the Garden Centre Group’s Blooming Great Tea Parties will allow Marie Curie Nurses to continue to provide more free care to people with terminal illnesses in their own homes or in one of the charity’s nine hospices, meaning the people we care for can continue to enjoy and benefit from their own or the hospice’s garden.

"It is so important for people to be able to spend their final days in their place of choice. Marie Curie relies on the generous support of the local community to ensure more terminally ill people can receive this care at the time when they need it most.”

Marie Curie is asking everyone to organise a tea party this June 20-29. For more information visit www.mariecurie.org.uk/teaparty.

The Garden Centre Group chose Marie Curie as its first national charity partner after an all-centre vote. The partnership will run for two years, over which time gardening-inspired fundraising, volunteering initiatives and commercial activity will help Marie Curie Nurses provide at least £500,000, to fund an additional 25,000 hours of free, hands-on care.

Activity launched during Marie Curie’s biggest annual fundraising campaign, the Great Daffodil Appeal. More than £33,000 was raised through a donation on pots of daffodils, daffodil collection boxes at all 850 till points, staff fundraising and Marie Curie collectors in centres across England and Wales.