About

A True Inspiration

The Kirsty Club aims to build a brighter future for Francis House Children’s Hospice in Manchester, England. The campaign is fronted by Kirsty Howard—a truly inspirational girl who battles her own illness on a daily basis. Francis House is a loving home where the corridors are filled with laughter, and the rooms flooded with light. Diana, Princess of Wales, opened the Hospice in 1991.

Kirsty’s Appeal

Our first campaign—Kirsty’s Appeal—aimed to raise £5 million to underpin Francis House, and secure the long-term continuation of its’ care programme for terminally ill children and support for parents. At that time the annual running cost was £1.7m and the only financial help was £27,500 per year made up from five Health Authority’s. The enormous task of raising the remaining funds every year had become a huge burden. Salaries alone to guarantee experienced nurses and care team cost £800,000 per year. Our main concerns are always that we are unable to pay staff unsociable hours. There have been three bids to the National Lottery—all without success.

Kirsty and the Appeal team achieved their goal of raising £5 million at The Angel Ball on Saturday, 28th October 2006. The interest raised on this amount will help many other very poorly children in the future, but until financial contributions from the Government become worthy of this wonderful service provided we must continue, as Francis House needs to grow. Hence—The Kirsty Club.

Building a Brighter Future Through The Kirsty Club

The Kirsty Club aims to make the Hospice even bigger and better. This can then be dedicated to our very special little girl as an everlasting legacy to her bravery.

Like all things our hospice has to expand and grow to reach out and meet the needs of more families. Their needs are significant. The Kirsty Club will expand and provide a new facility for Francis House, which desperately needs to be able to offer more support for more families of children with a short life expectancy. This special extension will provide existing families with extra days of care, and enable our the hospice to extend that support to some of the 900 families in our area.

Our Wonderful Supporters

Our biggest supporter is Harrod’s boss Mohamed Al Fayed, whose monthly contributions are essential in paying for Kirsty’s ongoing care, as well as raising funds for our campaign. We cannot thank him enough. We are also lucky to have the wonderful support of many people, including (in no particular order): Mohamed Al Fayed, Paul Beck, Louise Blenkharn, Andrea Bommer, Sandra Carney, Ian Ebden, Andy Gartside, Kevin Horkin, Paul Horrocks, Sue Johnston, Simon Moran, Mark Rix, Jonathan Sassen, Samia Smith, Russell Watson, and Adam Yaffé.

Thank you for your ongoing support.