St Christopher's Hospice Win 2nd Place in Community Heroes 2024

​A famous London hospice is planning to revamp some of its tired wards after finishing second place in our Community Heroes competition.

St Christopher's Hospice in Sydenham picked up the second highest number of votes from the public in the exhilarating finale of our annual contest.

There was more good news for the hospice when they were told we had increased the prize money from £1,000 to £5,000!

St Christopher’s – the home of the modern hospice movement started by its founder Dame Cicely Saunders - has around 1,800 patients in its care at any one time.

“We were delighted to finish second and to win £1,000 from Selco, but it was such a fantastic surprise when we heard the prize was being boosted to £5,000,” said John Vickers, Director of Finance and Corporate Services at St Christopher's.

“Most of our service users are cared for at home, but we also have people with particularly complex needs that stay on our wards. We are planning to upgrade these wards as they have not had much work done to them in a decade. This funding from Selco will make a big difference – and will also allow us to buy specialist, noise-reducing equipment so that disruption is kept to a minimum while the work takes place.

“It has been very exciting to be part of Community Heroes and we are grateful to Selco for their support.”

Organisations, schools and charities were invited to enter our Community Heroes 2024 initiative, which had a total prize pot worth £21,000.

More than 2,000 groups put themselves forward, with 12 winners selected over the course of six months, each winning £500 of building materials from their nearest Selco branch.

The dozen finalists went before a public vote to decide the winners. The overall winner was Fox Wood Special School in Warrington, which secured more than a quarter of the 9,000 votes to scoop £10,000, a prize that was increased from £5,000.

Simon Humpage, Head of Multi-Channel Marketing at Selco, said: “Community Heroes is our flagship initiative for charities and community groups or organisations that always captures the imagination. We're proud to be able to demonstrate our commitment to supporting good causes right across the country at a time when, for many, the need is so great. We look forward to launching Community Heroes 2025 shortly.”