Local businesses congratulated on their winning fundraising ideas for hospice

Local businesses and organisations participating in St Helena Hospice’s Birkett Long £50 Challenge gathered for a special awards evening at Le Talbooth in Colchester yesterday evening to celebrate raising an incredible collective £23,656.

The Apprentice-style challenge, now in its fourth year, has seen 30 teams devise a host of creative fundraising ideas to raise as much money as possible for the hospice from a ‘starter’ £50 note kindly donated by solicitors Birkett Long.

Since its inception in 2012, the challenge has raised £155,185.

Each team received a glass star trophy for their contribution to the fundraising; and five teams chosen by Birkett Long and St Helena Hospice were given special awards engraved with the name of the award.

The five special awards are as follows:

• Leading Fundraiser - Delphi Derivatives
• Team Work - Blowers; for their unusual ‘Pamper Day’ for children
• Team Work - Currys PC World; for their ‘100 days of fundraising’ initiative which involved a number of different activities
• Innovative  - Reeman Dansie; who auctioned off items that were left and donated, received donations from customers for auction and sold items to make money to purchase others
• Connecting with the Community – Perrywood; for getting out and about locally, collecting vintage containers for flower displays to sell.

David Cant, Partner and Director of Business Development & Marketing from Birkett Long commented: “It was magnificent to see so many local businesses coming together again for another year of raising money for such a fantastic local cause.”

Helen Causer, Head of Fundraising at St Helena Hospice says: “We would like to thank the teams who took part and helped raise this fantastic amount of money for the hospice. It has been great seeing the different creative ideas and events that each team came up with over the last few months. We’d like to pass on our thanks and congratulations to everyone involved, and we hope to see them again next year.”

To find out how local organisations can support the hospice in other ways please visit www.sthelenahospice.org.uk/corporate or contact Chloe Winter or Sarah Wilson on 01206 931468.