PPG's Colorful Communities Project with Morelli Group and Bury Hospice

This past weekend saw us complete the Bury Hospice Paint Project as part of PPG's Colourful Communities Programme.

The weekend consisted of:

🪣 500+ litres of paint
🖌️ 100s of rollers and paint brushes
⏱️ 1,000+ volunteer hours
📍 Volunteers from all four nations of the UK - England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland
🥪 800 sandwiches
☕️ A multitude of refreshments
🎂 2 birthdays

As with most hospices, Bury Hospice are only part-funded by the government and rely on donations to cover around 80% of their operating costs. This project started with a small request and snowballed into this incredible charitable event with over 100 people to thank for their time and effort. Bury Hospice's Volunteer Services Coordinator, Jo Johnson, is married to Morelli Northern Sales Director and she asked if we could donate a few cans of paint for them to redecorate for the first time in many years. We reached out to a few of our paint partners with decorative divisions and Richard Goode of PPG said yes immediately. However, he wasn’t satisfied with donating just a few cans of paint.

Richard, along with the help of Josef Jones, PPG Communications Manager UK & Ireland, decided to take this project to their global team to ask for it to be considered as one of PPG’s Colourful Communities Projects. This is a global programme that selects a number of projects around the world each year to support with paint, personnel, and expertise. 2025 marks 10 years of this programme and we were delighted to learn that Bury Hospice was accepted as one of the 10 global projects to mark this anniversary year!

As a hospice, we have to raise over £4 million a year to keep the service running. So, the opportunity to have every part of the building painted is incredible and one that we couldn't afford to do without the support of our new friends. We would like to thank Morelli Group, PPG, and Bell Group. We've had a great weekend and we've got a wonderful hospice.

- Stuart Richardson, CEO of Bury Hospice

The weekend was fully funded by PPG including paint and preparation materials through their Johnstone’s Paints division, a design consultancy to assist the hospice in choosing a beautiful colour palette, and a mural artist commissioned to paint a stunning mural in the reception area. We have been blown away with the scope of what is being done as part of this amazing project for the hospice! As well as the amazing care that the patients receive, it is also important that rooms and the environment as a whole is as clean and bright as possible to offer a small comfort to both patients and their visiting families at a very emotional time.

It seems especially fitting to post about this project on World Health Day as we learn about the link between clean workspaces and employee well-being. Your environment can have a huge impact on personal health - both physical and mental - which is why it was important for us to not just transform patient rooms and communal spaces, but offices and staff areas also. 

This entire weekend has been so unbelievably incredible. The community spirit, the energy, the laughter. Our hearts are so full right now with the amazing support given to Bury Hospice this weekend.

- Jo Johnson, Volunteer Services Coordinator at Bury Hospice

Our biggest thank you to PPG, Bell Group, and all volunteers - some of whom had travelled from distances as far as Cornwall and Belfast! We are blown away by the time and effort everyone put in to this worthy project. It has been an absolute honour to give back to such a phenomenal place and the incredible staff and volunteers who give their time providing care to those who need it.

If you were unable to attend the event but would like to provide your support for the centre in the way of a donation, please click here to be redirected to the official donation page.