THE Oxford Mail has devoted countless pages, supplements and special editions of the newspaper to coverage of local fundraising campaigns.

Over the past year this has included ongoing support to fundraise thousands of pounds for hospice care, more housing for parents of poorly children at the John Radcliffe, homelessness support and tackling loneliness among the elderly.

Through listening to our readers the Oxford Mail has responded in the only way it knows, to take the cause and run with in a bid to raise as much support as possible.

One partnership which has been given a huge boost this past year is the Oxford Children’s Hospital anniversary appeal for funds to go towards a new 62-bedroom Ronald McDonald House for parents to stay close to their poorly youngsters, plus funding vital equipment.

A decade ago Oxford Children’s Hospital opened its doors, now it’s celebrating its milestone anniversary year with an ambitious £2m appeal.

Sarah Vaccari, Head of Communications at Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Charitable Funds, said: “The support from the Oxford Mail for our Appeal has been amazing.

“Stories in the Mail and its sister publications are also a great way that we can publicly thank those dedicated supporters and families who are working so hard to raise money for the hospital and of course it all raises awareness. So we are incredibly grateful for all the coverage we get.”

Mrs Vaccari said that the partnership with the Oxford Mail stems back to the very beginning when the support soon turned into the creation of the OX5 charity run, now in its 15th year.

She added: “Amazingly we are now within touching distance of having raised £1M across the 15 year history of the OX5 RUN. I don’t think there are many papers that have shown this level of commitment to a local cause over such a long period of time.

“So during Local Newspaper Week we’d like to thank the Oxford Mail for all that they do for our hospital charity and for having such a strong community based ethos.”

The Oxford Mail created a special edition to launch the appeal in January with 12-pages of personal stories from the children’s hospital dedicated to the cause.

This is a pledge of commitment to the causes that our readers feel most strongly about and was reflected in another special edition of the Oxford Mail created for Sobell House Hospice appeal.

The newspaper publicly pledged its support in helping to raise £40,000 for Sobell House Hospice to help fund 100 days of care for some of Oxfordshire’s poorliest patients.

The ongoing appeal hopes to go towards Sobell’s £9m pot for a dementia-friendly extension and in a year which marks 40 years since the hospice began offering specialist care to Oxfordshire’s terminally-ill.

Sobell head of fundraising Dominique Cadiou said: “We’re very pleased with the coverage for Sobell and we’re well aware the level of awareness for us is at its highest ever.

“Also internally it has been fantastic for people to be invited to tell their stories and be heard, they have really appreciated that.

“Its great to hear people talking about Sobell and that is largely down to the Oxford Mail’s support.”

The campaign is currently at £4,000, to help bring that closer to the target http://bit.ly/2eRiM9H

To donate to the Oxford Children’s Hospital http://bit.ly/2j2cwjl