Update on 13th October: We now have the figure for the total raised – a fantastic £499.50. Interestingly, most of this sum was taken in cash – obviously a lot of people still enjoy a flutter using ‘proper money’!
For many years now Cherry Lodge Cancer Care has put on a very eye-catching and enjoyable Pink Tombola event. This popular event is held each October to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month and to raise money to help fund Cherry Lodge’s cancer information and support services. These twin causes remain as important as ever during the coronavirus pandemic and everyone involved was very keen to go ahead with this year’s event if at all possible. This was especially important following the cancellation of CL’s entire Spring and Summer Fundraising programme.
Thanks to a tremendous amount of hard work from CL’s fundraising team and to the generosity of our supporters, CL’s Pink Tombola 2020 was held at The Spires, Barnet on Saturday 10th October. The event had been included in a provisional Autumn fundraising programme drawn up in May, but it was not until 20th September that it was decided that sufficient measures could be taken to allow us to proceed safely.
Under strict Covid-19 rules we couldn’t have members of the public handling raffle tickets in a bucket – so Annys and Kim developed a splendid alternative. This comprised a polystyrene board with nearly 1,000 holes in it (see photographs). Each hole contained a numbered wooden stick which had to be pulled out of the board: if the stick had a red tip, it was a 0 or a 5 and won one of many generously donated prizes. This proved much more exciting than looking at a raffle ticket and people got very enthusiastic when they pulled out a winning stick!
Clearly everyone had to keep their distance and virtually everybody wore a face covering, including Poppy (see photo 4). This was a very joyful event, in the middle of a depressing and very uncertain pandemic period, and it almost felt like “the good old days”! As one of the volunteers commented: “Today is certainly a step in the right direction!” And indeed it was. At the time of writing, we still don’t know how much was raised by our Covid Pink Day as all the cash is being quarantined before being counted.
Once again, many thanks to Tina, Nisha, Annys and Kim and to the members of the fundraising team who together made sure that the event went smoothly.
Click on the small images below to see larger, complete photographs.
