£5,000 music therapy grant for Rainbows

A grant of £5,000 is music to the ears of Rainbows.

York-based Jessie’s Fund has made the donation to our hospice to help with our Music Therapy sessions, which are provided to hundreds of babies, children and young people with serious and terminal illnesses.

Our Music Therapist, Rosie Robinson, works at the hospice in Loughborough, but also travels across the East Midlands to visit children and young people in their homes and in hospitals. She said: “The very kind donation received from Jessie’s Fund really does help keep Music Therapy alive here at Rainbows, and our home and hospital sessions are invaluable for families and their children as a way of connecting to the hospice.”

Jessie’s Fund helps children with serious illnesses, complex needs and communication difficulties through the therapeutic use of music.

It was set up in 1995 in memory of Jessica May George who was nine years old when she was suddenly diagnosed with a rare and inoperable brain tumour. Jessie’s Fund was established to meet the cost of treatment planned for her in the USA and was named by Jessie herself, but she died in May 1994, just five months after her diagnosis and before managing to travel to America.

Lesley Schatzberger, from Jessie’s Fund, said: “When Jessie’s Fund was founded, our prime aim was to help children in hospices to express themselves through the power of music, and one of the hospices we were involved with in our early days was Rainbows when we helped to set up a music therapy service in 2001.

“Now we work with children in lots of different settings, but, knowing what a huge difference music therapy can make to the lives of children with serious illness, we still place a lot of importance in continuing to support it in children’s hospices, and we are delighted to be able to help Rainbows again.”