CAFÉ-GOERS are being asked to donate the price of a cup of tea or coffee to help a hospice while their favourite watering holes are out of bounds.

St Teresa’s Hospice is hoping to tap into the café culture which has been put on hold indefinitely because of the Covid-19 virus.

St Teresa’s Hospice needs £3m a year to continue its work to provide a raft of core services free of charge to patients and their families who are affected by life-limiting illness.

It relies almost completely on donations but most of its traditional fundraising events have had to be cancelled because and all its charity shops have had to close.

Donations have been coming in since St Teresa’s Hospice launched a virtual appeal to help meet the huge shortfall in public funding.

But hospice officials are hoping that everyone who used to go to or work from popular coffee houses will now donate the £3 they used to spend on a drink to the hospice.

Hospice chief executive Jane Bradshaw said: “It does cost a lot of money to maintain our services for the people of Darlington, South Durham and North Yorkshire. So we hope that now people can’t go to cafes they will be a star and donate their bucks.”