Great joy among the four beneficiaries of the WAGNER donation campaign (from right to left): Hansjörg Bentele and Barbara Meier-Wichmann from Hospizgruppe Salem e.V.; Martina Wersig representing Kinderhospiz St. Nikolaus, and Simon Diefenbach from Hospiz Konstanz with their symbolic cheques. Jürgen Stecher and Sandra Thiede present the fourth cheque for Urmel-Kinder-Krebshlfe e.V. on behalf of the many WAGNER employees who donated. Below (left) Dennis Brandmaier (organizer of the fundraising campaign at J. Wagner GmbH) and (right) Thomas Maier, (Chairman of the Works Council), who are delighted about the exceptionally high total donation amount of 72,000 euros.
Sick, in need of help and possibly lonely – that's not how anyone wants to spend the last phase of life! But this would be the case if it were not for people who accompany the terminally ill and dying on their difficult journey, giving them strength and being there for them and their loved ones who suffer with them and need comfort. These volunteers often work for non-profit hospice organizations. Since they do not receive funding to cover their costs, they rely on private donations to provide both human care and financial assistance in emergency situations. The need is great, because our society does not like to deal with incurable, life-shortening illness and death. This makes it all the more important to support the valuable activities of hospice associations. And this is exactly where we, the employees and the company J. Wagner, have become active.
For its annual fundraising campaign, WAGNER has decided to take a closer look at the region and provide unbureaucratic help where it is needed. And with resounding success, because the underlying concept convinces everyone: The company management has committed itself to doubling the donations collected by employees. The more individual donations there are, the higher the result that can be used for a good cause. For the third year in a row, employees have donated the value of many overtime hours and vacation days, as well as large sums of money. The company matched the donations, so that WAGNER was able to hand over an extraordinarily high donation of 72,000 euros!
"I am very happy and at the same time very grateful and also very proud of this result that we have achieved together at WAGNER!" says Jaqueline Schiele, one of the two leading managers of the People & Culture Department, J. Wagner GmbH. "In the last three years in which we have carried out our concerted fundraising campaign, we have collected a total of more than 185,000 euros, which we donate to charitable causes in the region!" The willingness to donate is high at WAGNER, because this season alone, each of the approximately 500 employees of J. Wagner at the Markdorf site has donated an average of around 70 euros. The largest single donation from employees was 7,200 euros.
This year, WAGNER donated the sum in equal parts to four hospice associations in the region, which accompany people in the difficult final period of their lives in an attentive and respectful manner and are at the side of the relatives and the bereaved. All the associations are registered, non-profit, independent and supported by volunteer hospice workers.
The WAGNER donation of 18,000 euros each went to:
the Urmel Children's Cancer Aid e.V., Friedrichshafen,
the Hospice Group Salem e.V., Salem-Stefansfeld
Hospice Konstanz, Konstanz
the children's hospice St. Nikolaus, Bad Grönenbach
Beneficiaries of the fundraiser
The Urmel-Kinder-Krebshilfe e.V. (Urmel Children's Cancer Aid), Friedrichshafen, supports not only the young cancer patients, but also their parents and siblings who are exposed to considerable emotional and social stress, so that they can cope with the crisis more easily. In addition to personal attention, financial support is often provided.
The volunteer hospice companions of the Hospizgruppe Salem e.V. (hospice group Salem) accompany seriously ill and dying people in an area from Heiligenberg to Hagnau, visit them in their familiar surroundings, listen, read aloud and participate. "We can't give more hours to life, but we can give more life to the hours," is their credo.
At the Hospiz Konstanz (Hospice Constance), volunteer and full-time staff deal with crises caused by illness, dying, death and grief. They encourage public discussion of these issues and offer advice and help in coping with these borderline situations.
The St. Nikolaus Kinderhospiz (St. Nikolaus children's hospice) in Bad Grönenbach in the Lower Allgäu region cares for families with children suffering from an incurable life-shortening illness. It accompanies the whole family from the moment of diagnosis, through the entire period of the illness and beyond death.
In the previous two years, the WAGNER donations went to the Kinderstiftung Bodensee (Lake Constance Children's Foundation) for its "Enablers" project and to the TAFELN in the Bodenseekreis (Lake Constance district), which were affected by an acute emergency to support people in need with food.
