Hitting the right note for Hope House

This year’s festival raised more than £10,000 for our charity partner Hope House, which will fund music therapy sessions for children with life-threatening illnesses.

You helped to raise £10,185 thanks to a contribution from us for every adult weekend ticket sold, your donations to the Sunday afternoon bucket collection and other fundraising. It brings the total raised through the festival since we began our charity partnership in 2008 to more than £91,000!

This year the bucket collection raised the most ever – £3,930. Hope House also received the donations made to charge mobile phones and electrical devices and sales at its pop up shop.

The funding supports music therapy sessions at the hospice that can be an important tool for helping children communicate and have fun.

Festival Director Sandra Surtees said she was over the moon by the astounding amount raised: “This is the first time we’ve ever tipped into five figures and it’s all down to the incredible generosity of our festivalgoers. The joy of music is at the very heart of what we do and our visitors obviously recognise how much this will mean to the children at the hospice through their music therapy.

“For some children and young people, it can be key to communication so it’s incredibly gratifying to know that we’re playing a small part in ensuring this service continues. We’re determined to reach that £100,000 milestone next year and working with Hope House for many years to come.”

Hope House Fundraising Team Leader Lynsey Kilvert said: “We would like to say a huge thank you to the Shrewsbury Folk Festival and festival goers for once again raising such an incredible amount of money and supporting us through both out bucket collection and at our pop-up shop.

“We need to raise £7.5 million a year to keep running our services for local children and families and without the incredible support from our community and supporters like Shrewsbury Folk Festival, we simply would not be able to be here for them.”