4Louis
Helping grieving parents and families to bear the loss of a child
4Louis is a charity that supports over 200 NHS trusts and more than 100 hospices across the UK with free memory boxes and burial beds for families coping with miscarriage, stillbirth and child bereavement.
Since the charity was registered in 2017, it has helped hundreds of thousands of grieving families. In October 2024, it reached a milestone with 250,000 memory boxes distributed, with each box helping at least six people including parents, siblings and grandparents.
Other products include cuddle cots for babies (portable mortuaries) and cuddle blankets for older children. These resources afford parents the precious gift of more time to spend with their children during the most challenging times.
The charity also has helped to establish maternity bereavement suites in hospitals nationwide so families can grieve their loss with dignity and privacy in dedicated spaces.
It introduced the Ibraheem’s Gift as part of its service after a Muslim family reached out to share what is needed to grieve in their faith, as there is a strict timeframe for burial in Islam.
It also created 4Louis FC to recognise the need to help and support grieving dads and male family members who are often not good at sharing their emotions.
In the last financial year, with the help of over 8,000 volunteer hours, it issued more than 22,000 memory boxes, 2,227 Ibraheem’s Gift boxes and launched a Welsh translation of its memory box messages.
4Louis has also worked with a local university to change its teddies, two per memory box, to recyclable products that still feel soft, as part of its efforts to be more sustainable.
Awards judge Julie Wilson-Dodd said 4Louis was filling a “critical unmet need” while André Clarke, director of charity development at Lloyds Bank Foundation, commended its responsiveness to different audiences.
CC Reg. no. 1172212
