What is Bags of Hope?

Bags of Hope is a project that makes bags for filled with essentials and activities for patients to have when they arrive on psychiatric wards. Our goal is to ensure that nobody arrives to psychiatric wards with only the clothes on their back. Patients should be there for treatment and help, and hospital admissions shouldn't feel like a prison sentence.

Since launching Bags of Hope in December 2023, Messages of Hope has delivered 123 Bags of Hope to 9 different psychiatric wards.

In addition to this page, we also have an Amazon Wishlist. This way you can decide whether you would like to choose what items you want to donate or if you would like to leave that decision up to us. Receiving monetary donations allows us to purchase items that we are in short supply of.

Our Amazon Wishlist

Why was Bags of Hope Created?

Bethan Evans is the Director of Messages of Hope and creator of Bags of Hope. Bethan is passionate about supporting patients that arrive in hospitals for psychiatric admissions. Diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and after spending four years of her life in and out of hospitals and psychiatric facilities, Bethan knows just how traumatic and life altering every admission can be.

On several occasions Bethan would be admitted to hospital without any of her belongings, and recalls several times when she would have to sit for days in clothes soaked with vomit and her hair matted. The lack of dignity and respect Bethan and so many other patients are shown during psychiatric admissions is something she only began to reflect on once she had entered recovery. Once she began to reflect she knew she had to do what she could to help those in a similar position.

Following the creation of Bags of Hope, hundreds of patients that have been through similar psychiatric ward experiences.