Sara Lee Trust

The Trust supports people in Hastings and Rother who have been diagnosed with cancer or another life-threatening illness by providing free counselling, complementary therapies and group activities specifically designed to work alongside medical treatment. Its origins lie with Sara Lee who was diagnosed with a rare cancer in 1993, She was determined to survive and began plotting her own care alongside medical treatment. Sara learnt about diet, relaxation and meditation, sourcing her own dietician and aromatherapist. With their help, she lived and worked through the next two years and spoke about how wonderful the therapies were. Sara wanted to help others with cancer to receive these therapies, which were difficult to source at the time and came at a cost.  Sadly, Sara died in 1995, aged 32, but she was determined that others in a similar situation to hers should benefit from the therapies she had developed. She asked her father, Dr Jeremy Lee, who was medical director at St Michael’s Hospice for many years, and her mother Sally to set up a Trust.

In 1996, the first therapy rooms opened up in St Michael’s Hospice and counselling and therapies started. Since then, treatment rooms have opened up in Sidley and Rye where seven different services may be received; counselling, Eye Movement desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), Massage, Reflexology, Dry Needling, Shiatsu and Reiki. In addition, a number of different groups are run, In the last year some 7,000 treatments were undertaken.

The Trust is self-supporting; it has shops and relies on donations and legacies to enable them to continue.

For further information about the Trust see www.Saraleetrust.org