National Lottery winners from New Quay are among a group of Welsh and South West winners to have joined forces with a Welsh hospice to help make their inspirational fundraising campaign, Forever Flowers, a flourishing success.

Lyn Sexton and Ian Pearce, formerly of Merthyr Tydfil but who now live in New Quay, won £1m in 2012.

They first heard about City Hospice ahead of Christmas 2020 when a number of winners produced festive hampers for the hospice staff to thank them for their incredible hard work and sacrifice during the first nine months of the pandemic.

Since then, they have been on the lookout for a new way to help the charity.

When the winners heard about the hospice’s Forever Flowers campaign, giving people the chance to celebrate the lives of lost loved ones, they were keen to get involved and signed up to help in Cardiff Castle where over 1,400 flowers are displayed.

Lyn who travelled up to Cardiff with his husband Ian to volunteer for the day said: “We jumped at the chance to get involved with this important campaign, no one has been immune to the difficulties of the past year and a half.

“Forever Flowers was a great way of bringing people together.

“In the nine years since we won The National Lottery we have volunteered for all sorts of good causes and after Covid-19 stopped us all getting together for so long, it was really special to give our time to a good cause again.

“We might not have all been able to be in Cardiff Castle at the same time, but to unite behind such a fantastic campaign has been really special.”

Come rain or shine this August, eager volunteers were on hand throughout the Forever Flowers display, meeting visitors who had come to see the flowers they had purchased in memory of their loved ones, guiding guests to the right location, explaining the Forever Flowers campaign to members of the public and selling City Hospice merchandise to help with further fundraising.

City Hospice provides palliative care for 550 patients with life limiting or terminal illnesses in Cardiff at any one time, in addition to services for patients’ families, such as counselling and bereavement support. City Hospice has previously received a number of National Lottery grants, including £10,000 of funding towards their Patient MiniBus Fund in January 2019.

Liz Andrews, CEO at City Hospice, said: “We were overwhelmed by the kindness of The National Lottery winners at the end of a very difficult year last year and when they said they wanted to work with us again we were thrilled.

“Forever Flowers has been such an important campaign for us, not only raising vital funds for City Hospice but also building awareness of our work, as well as caring for people with terminal and life-limiting illnesses, which is an important part of our work in supporting bereaved families.”

To date, over £43 billion has been raised and distributed to National Lottery Good Causes.