150 Days of Volunteering: Julia Goes Above and Beyond

As part of our 150th anniversary celebrations, we have pledged to volunteer for 150 days in 2025 as a company. One member of our team who has personally taken on many hours of volunteering this year is Neville Funerals’ Julia Milton, Julia talks about her latest volunteering efforts: “My granddaughter, Charis, was diagnosed with Leukaemia at just 17 months old and was so poorly she needed to be fed and receive her medication via a Nasogastric tube (NG tube).

“The NG tube is inserted through the nose and into the stomach with the nasal end taped across the cheek and left to hang or tucked into clothing. Through conversation with the nurses and other parents on the ward my daughter and son-in-law were able to have knowledge of, and see parents using, an NG tube pocket. This is a small pocket whereby the end of the tube can be curled up, placed in the pocket, fastened and clipped onto the child’s clothing to keep it out of the way to prevent it snagging and then possibly needing to be re-inserted.

“The pockets can be purchased on-line, but when you are in hospital, and for some a long distance from home (there are only 11 paediatric oncology units in England) with your very sick child you don’t want to be searching the internet for one. Many of these families will have financial burdens being unable to work whilst caring for their sick child and to buy NG pockets would add to that.

So with Neville’s 150th Anniversary year and staff being asked to consider how we would volunteer our time to support the community I felt challenged to make my volunteering total 150. I decided to make 50 NG tube pockets to donate to the ward where Charis received her treatment to support parents of newly diagnosed children and to give something back in recognition of the wonderful care and support Charis and the family received. I was able to use some of the boxes of fabric and threads stored away in our loft, much of which were my mother’s who had made many patchwork quilts, some for the Keech Hospice.

“After 37 hours of cutting and sewing fabric, I had completed the pockets. Charis, her very loving and supporting brother accompanied me to the ward to hand them over. These were presented in a box which has a copy of one of Charis’ own drawings on the front and was donated by one of the company’s suppliers, Gateway Publishing.

“Jenni, one of the ward managers, greeted us to receive the donation of pockets. Both she and nurses were absolutely thrilled and delighted, not only with the number of pockets but also the variety of patterns in the fabric that the children could choose from and the box to keep them all together. They were excited as to how much this would help and support families of those who receive care and treatment on the ward.

“With 50 NG-tube pockets completed I have now commenced on the next part of my 150 challenges and am now making 50 jars of jam to raise funds towards Neville’s four chosen charities we are supporting in this anniversary year.”