North Kent charity EllenorLions Hospices which provides hospice care for adults and children is inviting the community to its new and improved coffee morning starting this week.

The popular fundraising event returns to the EllenorLions Hospice, Coldharbour Road in Northfleet on Friday (March 7) with a new time of 10am till noon, new stalls, different varieties of delicious tea, coffee and cake and the added incentive of free entry.

Parents with young tots can also come along to a new pre-school music group run by former West End star Leanne Jones.

The 28-year-old from Gravesend, who starred as the lead role of Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray, will be charging a £1 donation for the fun half-hour Musical Monkeys pre-school group, starting at 10am alongside coffee morning.

The Laurence Olivier Award winner, who recently auditioned on BBC’s ‘The Voice’, is asking parents to bring along an empty water bottle so their tots can make maracas.

Mother-of-one Leanne, of Portland Avenue, said: "I am very excited about holding this new pre-school music group for local families in aid of local hospice care. "When I moved to Gravesend a year ago I decided I wanted to support a worthwhile local charity, and EllenorLions Hospices was the perfect choice. "The community is extremely fortunate to have a charity on their doorstep that provides wonderful care to seriously ill adults and children and their families.

"By coming along to the music group or by popping into coffee morning you will be helping to fund that vital care and support."

All money raised from coffee morning will help EllenorLions Hospices to provide vital care and support to seriously ill children and adults and their families, in their place of choice."

Isobel Kerry, area fundraiser at the charity, said: "Our coffee mornings have always been very popular with the people in the community.

"We wanted to offer our supporters some new and exciting additions to the event and we hope free entry will also encourage new people to come along and see the fantastic things on offer.

"As a charity we must raise over £6million every year, so we really hope that people will support us by coming along to coffee morning and hopefully have a very enjoyable time."

For all 2014 coffee morning dates and information on other fundraising events, please visit www.ellenorlions.org.