Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
A piece of cake to honour Maggie’s
JUDITH TONNER
Maggie’s Lanarkshire cancer caring centre marked its fifth birthday with a special celebration.
Centre users, volunteers, staff and supporters came together to mark five years since the service – providing practical and emotional support to people with cancer and their loved ones – opened in the grounds of Monklands Hospital.
They celebrated with a spectacular cake depicting the centre and its walled garden, specially created by Maggie’s supporters Finsbury Food, which was cut by North Lanarkshire provost Jean Jones, centre head Lorrie Forsyth and Coatbridge man Des Hamill.
A total of 70 guests attended the event, where they were also treated to live music from singing duo Loxie and took part in prize games.
Maggie’s Lanarkshire fundraising manager Marion Pirrie told the Advertiser: “It was a brilliant occasion and we had a really nice mixture of people there, who’ve used the centre, volunteer and fundraise, and who support us as individuals or through work.
“It was very much about saying thank you as the centre turns five – we appreciate all the support we’ve had in being able to run the programme of support that we do.
“The time has just gone so quickly; it feels like yesterday that we had Colin Montgomerie here for the groundbreaking and then the centre opening, and we’ve seen so many successes since opening our doors in 2014.
“Numbers are going up every year, with more and more people hearing about the programme of practical and emotional support and new groups starting up at the centre, so it’s nice to see everything going in the right direction.”
Marion said: “Finsbury Foods did the amazing cake for our opening day, which was gold to look like the centre’s suncatchers; and this year they’ve taken us on as one of their charities and so far have had three groups volunteering in our garden.
“They took inspiration from that and had taken photos of the centre while they were here – and it was absolutely incredible to see the cake they’d created.
“We felt it was right to have somebody who’s used Maggie’s to be part of the cake cutting; Des is very close to the centre and taking part in the fundraising Culture Crawl this weekend.”