The Marie Curie Daffodil appeal has been raising funds since 1986.
Every March, millions of people across the UK show their support for their work, simply by giving a donation to wear a daffodil pin.
Without this generosity, thousands of families across the UK wouldn’t be able to make the most of the precious time they have left together.
The History behind the Appeal
1986 - The first daffodil appeal is held in Scotland. Volunteers collect donations and hand out fresh daffodils. The event is a great success and soon catches on across the UK.
1995 - The Marie Curie famous daffodil fabric pins make their debut, replacing fresh flowers. Three million pins are given out and £1.2 million is donated.
2001 - Entertainer and presenter Cilla Black launches the appeal on a Daffodil bus donated by Yellow Pages, while model Kate Moss dons a designer T-shirt to raise awareness of Marie Curie’s work during the appeal.
2005 - Marie Curie uses the name ‘Great Daffodil Appeal’ for the first time.
2011 - Actress Alison Steadman is the face of the very first TV ad campaign for the Great Daffodil Appeal. The appeal raises more than £5 million.
2014 - Marie Curie’s most successful appeal to date raises £8.26 million, funding 413,000 nursing hours. Celebrity supporters include actress Olivia Coleman and actor Dominic West.
2016 - Hoped to be even better than ever!
Since the first Great Daffodil Appeal took place in 1986, an incredible £72 million has been raised to fund the charity’s work. This money has enabled Marie Curie to provide more of the free hands-on care and emotional support the charity is renowned for.
Marie Curie Cancer Care is one of the UK’s largest charities. Employing more than 2,700 nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals, it provided care to more than 35,000 terminally ill patients in the community and in its nine hospices last year and is the largest provider of hospice beds outside the NHS.
The charity is best known for its network of Marie Curie Nurses working in the community to provide end of life care, totally free for patients in their own homes.
The charity provides core funding for three palliative care research facilities; the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Unit at University College London, the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute Liverpool and the Marie Curie Palliative Care Centre at the Wales Cancer Trials Unit (Cardiff University).
The charity also supports palliative and end of life care research through its project grant funding streams, the Marie Curie Cancer Care Research Programme (administered by Cancer Research UK) and the Dimbleby Marie Curie Cancer Care Research Fund. Both research programmes aims to tackle the funding and knowledge gap in palliative and end of life care research, which in turn will benefit patients, families and carers.
Research shows around 63 per cent of people would like to die at home if they had a terminal illness, with a sizeable minority opting for hospice care. However, more than 50 per cent of cancer deaths still occur in hospital, the place people say they would least like to be.
Since 2004 Marie Curie Cancer Care has been campaigning for more patients to be able to make the choice to be cared for and die in their place of choice.
More volunteers are alway needed to help collect donations in return for daffodil pins.
Five reasons to volunteer TO HELP ;
It's Quick , It's Easy, It's Fun, It's Sociable & It's Rewarding.
