Dave Longman is the owner of SCHMIDT Eastbourne – a new kitchen and interiors showroom in Grove Road. He is also a long-time supporter of St Wilfrid’s Hospice and has kindly chosen to sponsor this year’s Starlight Stroll event.

‘The hospice means a lot to my family after they cared for my dad seven years ago,’ he told us. ‘He was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and was cared for at home by Dr Jo Shawcross. Now we’ve continued the connection as my mum volunteers at the Donation Centre and my wife, Sam, is a Clinical Nurse Specialist within the hospice’s Community Team.

‘Because of this connection we have all taken part in the Starlight Stroll before. It is a great event that does a fantastic job at bringing people together who have all lost someone close to them. My mum has volunteered at the event a couple of times too.

‘I am very pleased to be supporting Starlight Stroll this year by being the main event sponsor. Although the Schmidt brand has 32 locations in the UK and around 500 across Europe, our showroom only opened in March so it’s great to be able to raise awareness of the business so early on. The whole process has been very straight forward, so I would definitely recommend other businesses finding out how they can get involved in supporting the hospice’s work. The hospice really is a centre point of the community.’

This year, Starlight Stroll is taking place on Saturday 10^th September. Sign up to the event here.

If you are a local business, visit our Corporate Supporters page to find out how you can support St Wilfrid’s.