JUBILANT hospital fundraisers are celebrating after being awarded £20,000 for an appeal to help terminally patients.

The Time Garden appeal at Colchester General Hospital, is now rapidly soaring to its £160,000 target after being given the £20,000 boost from Colchester Council.

The project was shortlisted for council cash available in the Big Choice scheme.

Winners were revealed yesterday.

Bev Pickett, who is heading up the appeal and is the hospital’s end of life facilitator, said the windfall made the running total around £70,000.

“We really didn’t have an idea whether we had it or not, we just hoped.

“We are so pleased. To have been voted for by residents is really lovely because sadly it is an area their friends and family could use.”

The Time Garden appeal, led by the Colchester Hospitals Charity and supported by the Gazette, was launched last autumn.

The space at the hospital will include a pavilion and garden where patients can go at the end of their lives away from the hubbub of the busy acute hospital.

Members of the public were invited to vote for projects they felt were most deserving of a Big Choice grant.

Other recipients of £20,000 were the Colchester Korban Project, to help set up a house for three young homeless people to become fully independent.

Dedham Therapy Farm will use its £20,000 to help 20 more vulnerable people and allow it to buy some more animals.

Citizens Advice Colchester’s cash will provide rehabilitation support for patients of the Lakes Psychiatric Unit, at Colchester General Hospital.

Among the £5,000 award winners was drug and alcohol addiction charity Open Road, who will buy laptops and desktop computers for Queen Street centre.

Find Your Spark will provide free or low cost training programmes for parents of children with Asperger’s or Autism.

Signpost will run workshops to help eight unemployed people with CV writing skills.

Another recipient was Wivenhoe Repair, Reuse, Recycle, which delivers weekly repair cafes of household items in Colchester and Wivenhoe library.

Council leader Paul Smith (Lib Dem), said: “I am extremely pleased to be awarding this well-needed funding to this selection of extremely worthwhile schemes.

“I want to congratulate the projects that have won a share of Colchester’s Big Choice grant.

“What makes Colchester’s Big Choice special is that the local communities have had their say and voted for the projects they felt would benefit their local communities I hope the £100,000 funding will make a huge long lasting difference to communities across the borough.”