Keeping the roof over their heads

The Cheshire Home needed £7,000 to fix a leaking roof of its base at Shorncliffe in the Rohais. It hadn’t even approached us – our news editor spotted that the Coop had made a donation from its Autumn Community Fund for roof repairs, and thought that we should investigate.

Buckets on floors of bedrooms and corridors is not a good look and had to be dealt with. And before the morning was out the home had had cash offers and an offer of practical help from Sarnian Roofing – highlighted on our front page on Saturday – to get the work done. A fantastic result all round and we were delighted to have played a part.

But the Guernsey Cheshire Home needs to do things like this day in and day out. It needs to raise £1.4m. every year – that’s nearly £4,000 every day of the year – to operate and maintain the current levels of care and service to its residents who all have serious physical disabilities but deserve their dignity and independence.

‘Without us, these islanders living with the affects of disability would have a very different and difficult existence in Guernsey,’ it admits.

It’s a cause that deserves our support, a cause that without dedicated effort, could, arguably should, fall on the taxpayer. If the next thing you can do for the Cheshire Home is support the Boxing Day Dip at Cobo, then please do so.