LAW firm Harrison Clark Rickerbys has raised nearly £5,000 for four charities in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire through its make-a-Will schemes with another planned in Herefordshire in June.

The schemes mean that people can choose to pay the legal fees for making their Wills to the charities involved. Typically a single Will brings an £80-£100 donation, with a pair of "mirror wills", where husband and wife make wills in each other’s favour, raising between £140 and £160.

April’s efforts for Sight Concern in Worcestershire raised £2,645, while the Sue Ryder Foundation’s Leckhampton Court Hospice in Gloucestershire received £1,675 from the scheme at the end of last year. A scheme in Redditch raised £440 for the Carers’ Careline charity.

Lisette Macdonald, who led the Redditch and Sight Concern schemes, said: “People really like the fact that they can use an essential step in their own lives to give money for a local charity – everyone should have a will, and if you can give money to a good cause while putting your own affairs in order, so much the better.”

Another scheme, in aid of Malvern Theatres throughout May, is already fully subscribed, and the scheme planned for St Michael’s Hospice near Hereford will run for two weeks from June 13. Organisers Catherine Hitchman and Julia Stahl are keen that people should take advantage of the scheme to ensure that their loved ones benefit after they are gone, and that other people’s loved ones benefit from their donation in the meantime. The hospice benefited to the tune of £2,200 last year from a similar scheme run by the firm.