Blackburn Cathedral joins the challenge to raise funds for its local hospice - with a head shave during the Eucharist!

The Dean of Blackburn had his head shaved during the Eucharist yesterday to raise funds for the local Hospice and raise awareness of its vital service to the community.

The Cathedral is just one of a number of local businesses and organisations that have joined the East Lancashire Hospice Corporate Challenge.

Each business is given seed money of £50 with the challenge to turn that into as much as possible over a four-month period.

The Cathedral has invited members of the congregation and its wider community to help meet the challenge and have bought tubes of sweets to fill with cash, ingredients to sell cakes in its café, and others have agreed to sign up to the Hospice’s special Fire Walk challenge later this month.

And the Dean, The Very Revd Peter Howell-Jones, kicked off the fundraising with a sponsored head shave. The shave took place after the Eucharist on Sunday and he has already raised over £700 towards his £1,000 target.

The Dean of Blackburn said: “We are really excited to join this challenge and raise as much money as we can for this vital service here in East Lancashire.

"We hope by sharing their stories and taking part in this fundraiser challenge, we can help those people and their families that turn to the hospice in times of need," he added.

It is the first time the hospice has been able to run its corporate challenge campaign since the pandemic - they raised over £61,000 in 2019 and this year, hopes to top that.

Anyone wanting to support the Cathedral’s fundraising efforts can do so here.