A FUNDRAISING drive has raised a profit of more than £13,500 in just ten weeks thanks to the generous support of a community.
In-patient, day and community services at St Teresa’s Hospice will benefit from the proceeds of the annual draw, staged at Vauxhall dealership Drive, which supplied the top prize of a Corsa Griffin.
Other lucky winners walked away with a luxury weekend in the Lake District, a lawnmower, a day of karting, a pair of mountain bikes and tickets to a Jess Glynne concert.
A small army of volunteers, including members of the military, many local businesses, such as Sainsbury’s Victoria Road which has adopted the Hospice this year, and the hospice staff and volunteers, have been selling tickets for the annual extravaganza to raise much-needed funds.
Top prize was a Vauxhall Corsa Griffin 1.4 hatchback featuring sat nav, Bluetooth, air conditioning, heated seats, heated steering wheel, automatic windscreen wipers, 16-inch black alloy wheels, tinted rear windows and electrically controlled heated door mirrors.
It was supplied for the charity by Vauxhall dealer Drive, which has garages in Darlington, Northallerton and Stockton.
All profits from the draw will go towards helping fund the hospice, on Woodland Road, Darlington, which needs more than £3m a year to continue to provide free care and support for residents of Darlington, South West Durham and North-Yorkshire who are affected by life-limiting illness.
St Teresa’s Hospice chief executive Jane Bradshaw said: “These are particularly challenging times for all charities so to raise this amount is absolutely brilliant.
“We have been selling tickets all over Darlington, Northallerton, Richmond and Leyburn and it has also been a great way to meet people and talk about the work the hospice does. It has certainly helped having such great prizes and we are very grateful to Drive for helping us.”
Drive operations director Rob Keenan said: “I live near the hospice and appreciate the incredible work they do for our community. We are delighted to support them and will be developing our relationship even further in the future.”
St Teresa’s Hospice chairman Harry Byrne added: “Our staff and volunteers work tirelessly to help people through some very challenging times, but we could not do any of our work without the unstinting support of the community for which we are eternally grateful.”