The hare adopted by Leiston Friends. Photo: Courtesy of Leiston Quakers.
Leiston Friends jump ahead with outreach
Friends in Leiston are supporting a local hospice by adopting a four-foot high hare
Leiston Meeting has hopped onto a unique outreach opportunity, adopting a four-foot high young hare, and supporting St Elizabeth’s Hospice in Ipswich. The hare is one of thirty-eight being adopted by Suffolk organisations, each of which is tasked with raising £650 for the hospice, then decorating their hare before they form a ‘hare trail’ around Ipswich this spring.
‘When I saw the campaign launch,’ said Alison Mudd, co-clerk of Leiston Meeting, ‘I just saw a great opportunity to raise our profile in our local community.’
Later the hare will return to the Meeting house, where it will join Friends in a number of pop-up Meetings for Worship through the summer, as well as grabbing attention at outreach events in and around Leiston.
Robert Ashton, from Leiston Meeting, told the Friend that the crowdfunding campaign saw the £650 target reached in less than a week.
This was ‘perhaps no surprise, as a number of Leiston Friends have seen loved ones supported by the hospice’. With gift aid, the total raised was more than £1,000.
‘It was heartening to see how Friends pulled together to make this campaign a success,’ Alison Mudd added. ‘I think we need to do this more often!’
According to the Meeting’s crowdfunding page, the hare ‘joined our Meeting last Sunday, and without exception, everybody smiled when they entered the room’.
