At Rosedale, we are firm believers that a funeral director should be a friendly and approachable member of the local community. We involve ourselves in our local communities in many different ways: We are always happy to give talks about the work of the funeral director to groups such as The Women’s Institute, or The Rotary Club. We hold regular open days to ensure that the work we do is not shrouded in mystery and we aim to be accessible and easy to talk to.

Our staff are often active members of the community in their own right, getting involved in groups such as the Young Farmers, local churches, Cruse or Friends of Chernobyl’s Children. George Ling is the proud winner of the Beccles and Bungay Pride in the Community Award and Derrick Leeder and his wife Sandra were proud to receive the Rosebowl Award for long service in the Diss Salvation Army. In addition, Rosedale is pleased to support many community initiatives and some examples of our work are detailed below.

Operation Christmas Child

In our first year, some of the staff got together to donate a few shoe boxes filled with toys, for children in Romania. The initiative has grown year on year and in 2010 we donated over 300 shoe boxes, packed full with items such as soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste, flannels, bouncy balls, stickers, colouring pencils, writing pads and teddy bears and dolls. We are always keen to receive donations of items to put in the shoe boxes, or if you are interested in knitting small items such as hats, mittens or glove puppets, please let us know and we can provide knitting patterns. Sometimes, the hardest part of the initiative is finding enough empty shoe boxes, and we are always glad to receive these – just pop them in to your nearest Rosedale branch.

Wymondham

In our Wymondham premises we are lucky enough to have room for a window display in one of the main shopping areas. We donate this window space to local charities or organisations for a 3-4 week period, which gives them a great opportunity to raise awareness of their activities. Some of the groups that have benefited from using the window are the Royal British Legion, The Pabulum Café, the Caister Lifeboat (Local Wymondham Branch), the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths and the Wymondham Music Festival. If you would like to know more about availability of the window, please contact Marion or Andy in the Wymondham office

We are proud sponsors of local gymnast Bethany Harmer, a young girl who shows tremendous dedication and promise.

We work closely with the schools, clergy and library to ensure that bereavement resources are freely available for children in the area, and we donated a book of memories to the cemetery chapel to enable visitors to the cemetery to record their thoughts and feelings in a tangible way. We were especially pleased to work with the Green Team from Wymondham High School who helped us develop a range of environmentally friendly ashes urns and to assist Browick Road Infant School with the creation of a vegetable garden as part of the Brighter Wymondham initiative.

We are also pleased to have supported The Star Throwers, Wymondham Fair Trade, Wymondham Dell Bowls Club, the Ladybird Pre School and Busy Bees Playgroup, "LIFTED" a project of City Church for new mums and their babies and The Wymondham Lions Club, particularly with their Dickensian evening Christmas Fayre.

Attleborough

Our chapel of rest in Attleborough sports a beautiful stained glass window, designed entirely by children from each of the local schools. We work closely with the schools, clergy and the library to ensure that bereavement resources are freely available for children in the area, and also support the Chapel Road School by fundraising for their special needs pupils.

We are also pleased to have supported The Carlton Rode Baptish Church following their fire in 2009, The Attleborough Amateur Boxing club, The Wymondham and Attleborough Talking newspaper, The Attleborough Under 8’s football team, The Eastern Transport Collection, Attleborough in Bloom, Attleborough Christmas lights and Quidenham Hospice

Diss

When we first opened in Diss, one of the first community initiatives we got involved in was to ensure the Diss Cemetery Chapel could be made available for funeral services and this included the donation of an organ and a book of memories in which visitors to the Cemetery could record their thoughts and feelings.

We work closely with the schools, clergy and the library to ensure that bereavement resources are freely available for children in the area.

We are also pleased to have supported The East Anglian Air Ambulance, Friends of Diss Health Centre, Friends of Chernobyl’s Children, Diss Athletics Club, Nina Wilson’s round Norfolk bicycle ride for Quidenham Hospice (EACH), the Salvation Army, Scole fete, The Diss Town Mayors Charity Ball, Diss Carnival, Rickinghall Church remembrance garden, the British Heart Foundation and the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Bungay

So many families who we look after have had some kind of involvement of some kind with All Hallows Healthcare Trust, both the Hospital and the Nursing Home, and so we are always pleased to support their work in the community.

Liz was thrilled to have the opportunity to take part in the ladies tractor run to raise funds for Cancer Research UK and her tractor looked lovely all decked out in pink ribbons and balloons.

We work closely with the schools, clergy and library to ensure that bereavement resources are freely available for children in the area.

We are also proud to have supported the Bungay Camera Club, The Bungay Rotary Club, The Bungay Horticultural Society, The Fisher Theatre and the Bungay Library Gardens.

Halesworth

Above our office in Arcadia House, we are fortunate to have available a meeting room with a small kitchenette. This room is available for local organisations or charities to use free of charge. Please contact Dee if you are interested.

When we first opened in Halesworth we nominated the Halesworth Volunteer Centre to be our charity of the year and are pleased to have supported them and their community car scheme through fundraising and donations. Dee also supports the friends of Patrick Stead Hospital and always raises money for them at their summer fete each year.

We work closely with the schools and clergy to ensure that bereavement resources are freely available for children in the area. We were delighted to be able to provide a chauffeur driven limousine to take Michael Bryenton to Buckingham Palace when he was invited by The Queen to mark 45 years of service for Cancer Research UK.

We are a registered drop off point for Operation Christmas Child, so you can drop of any filled shoe boxes here, as well as donations of empty boxes, knitted items or other gifts. We are also proud to have supported the Halesworth Arts Festival and the Halesworth Lions with both the Halesworth Carnival and fete and the Wings and Wheels event.