Daffodils are Wales’ national symbol, and they’re also the symbol for the charity Marie Curie. This year, fundraisers were out in droves on St David’s Day collecting money selling daffodil pins to raise vital funds for the charity, and they hope to raise even more now the appeal is in full swing.
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00:00Every year, Marie Curie cares for thousands of people at the end of their lives all across
00:06the country.
00:07The charity provides general support, and their nurses are there for patients and their
00:10families and give people a vital lifeline where end-of-life care is needed.
00:15Lowri and Tori, both Marie Curie fundraisers from South Wales, and they say that this time
00:20of the year is huge for the charity as they embark on their Great Daffodil Appeal, where
00:24the charity will hope to raise money to provide for their service.
00:28Last year, just in Wales, we raised £100,000 from our collections, that was just our volunteers
00:35getting out in supermarkets and city centres, making our daffodils available and taking
00:39donations from the public.
00:41That was also match-funded, so that was £200,000 when you consider, you know, it's like around
00:49£200 for a night's worth of nursing care.
00:53Obviously, our Daffodil Appeal would have funded, I can't even do that maths, but a
00:58lot of nights, so it's, yeah, it's absolutely vital for us, and that's why we've done it
01:02for so long and continue to do it.
01:03I mean, St David's Day is a huge day for us, and we were quite lucky this year that it
01:07fell on the first, it fell on a Saturday, the 1st of March, so that was even better.
01:13There was the school holidays, so so many people were out, and the weather was definitely
01:17on our side, so I think we made a lot of money just on St David's Day alone this year in
01:22Wales.
01:23It's not just about the care they provide though, as Tory says there are people working
01:28behind the scenes lobbying governments like at the Senate, fighting for improvements to
01:32end-of-life care, something they say has been massively left to the wayside over the last
01:36few years.
01:37So, something that goes on in the background is that we have a policy and research team,
01:43so they're kind of the people in the background who are, you know, fighting for better end-of-life
01:47care.
01:48We've got the providers and then the people fighting for it, so just last week, before
01:54St David's Day, we actually had a Senedd reception for the launch of our Great Daffodil
01:59Appeal, and our policy team worked quite closely with a lot of the members of Senedd to kind
02:05of get them on board for putting in, you know, what Marie Curie would like to see in the
02:10Welsh Government manifesto, and that's all part of what we do as well, which a lot of
02:15people don't know about.
02:16Glowery thinks that it's not been a top priority for governments, so want to see end-of-care
02:21given the time it deserves by lawmakers.
02:23It's about sort of closing that gap. We're actually sort of, well, as a society, we're
02:29moving in the wrong direction of people are living longer, they're having more sort of
02:33complex health needs, so that need for end-of-life care is just increasing. By 2048, we think
02:40that's going to increase by up to 25%, so we're just looking for it to be made a priority
02:46really. Unfortunately, it's not made a priority, but it's one thing we know we're all going
02:50to face is an end-of-life, so it needs to be made a priority in local government and
02:56UK-wide.