Julie’s truly scrumptious baking bonanza heads for £3,000 target for Lancaster hospice

When Bolton-le-Sands resident Julie Duncan cooked up a 26-cake marathon effort back in April, little did she realise she would still be baking strong in June!
Julie Duncan.Julie Duncan.
Julie Duncan.

Julie raised a creditable £223 for St John’s Hospice in Lancaster - but the initial success of the towpath bakery fuelled the desire for Julie to set an ambitious £2,600 target.

Now she is ‘over the moon’ with the amazing support she received over the last four weekends from walkers, cyclists and residents of Bolton–le –Sands, Carnforth and district for her 2.6 challenge – surpassing the £2,600 goal – and raising a tasty £2,838 for the hospice.

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Visitors to the canalside cake stand, at the back of Julie’s house, have donated very generously to raise much needed funds and Julie hopes to reach a newly set target of £3000 with her final cake bake this Saturday, June 13.

Encouraged by her daughter, Natalie, a bank nurse at St John’s, Julie has taken part in the 2.6 Challenge created by the London Marathon events team and other organisations to mark what should have been the 40th London Marathon on April 26, the world’s biggest one-day fundraising event.

Julie, who works in the Quality and Governance Department at St John’s Hospice, decided to put her culinary skills to good use and bake.

From fairy to flapjack, from chocolate to coffee and from sponge to scones, every kind of cake imaginable has helped raise much-needed funds to help St John’s provide the world-class end-of-life nursing care for which the hospice is renowned.

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Julie said her late mum, Nursing Officer and District Nursing Sister Ada Arthur, instilled in her and her daughters their real passion for the hospice movement.

With highly specialist skills in nursing cancer patients, Ada studied and excelled in oncological nursing, working for many years with the terminally ill and, later in life, was a frequent visitor to St John’s Hospice.

She said: “I have received so much excellent support for this fundraiser from everyone from the Lancaster Guardian team, who helped promote the first ‘bake and share’ event, to my friends and hospice volunteers who then began to bake for me, to friends and neighbours who publicised my efforts and, of course, the host of canal-side supporters who donated so generously. Thank you so much!

“So please could I make one last plea for people, if they possibly can, to consider donating to St John’s Hospice in return for a slice of the final cake baked this Saturday, June 13, to get my total to £3,000 in support of the hospice.”