We are excited to announce that Xscape Yorkshire has joined forces with one of the county’s fastest growing charities – Yorkshire Children’s Trust – to help raise its profile and much needed funds during the course of the year.
The YCT charity has helped to support over 1,000 families since it launched in 2011, with help given to more than 100 families a year.
Its Yorkshire-wide support focuses on helping children with any long-term illness or disability, supporting the emotional needs of the families with holidays, present giving and counselling, and the financial needs with support grants to pay for medical equipment or treatment, hospital travel costs and essential home modifications.
Simon Widdop, Charity Founder of Yorkshire Children’s Trust, said: “We’re over the moon to have Xscape Yorkshire name us as their annual charity partner because this will undoubtedly help raise our Yorkshire-wide profile. We exist to help others, so the more people know about us and the more money we can raise, the more effective we can be.”
“It’s incredible to be talking about helping over 1,000 families as it doesn’t seem like five minutes since we founded the charity, but our work continues to grow. Despite the far-reaching activity of the charity, and close work with parents, social workers and medical professionals, we don’t receive any direct funding from the Lottery, NHS or central government and rely 100% on the support of local people and local businesses to provide the service.”
Jason Warren, General Manager of Xscape Yorkshire, said: “Every year we like to play our small part in helping a deserving charity raise their profile and hopefully some money in the process. When we met with the charity we were impressed by the work Simon and the team have achieved so far, considering their modest size, and felt a partnership was a great fit; they support families from across the region and many of our visitors are Yorkshire-wide, too.”
“We are now working on a schedule of fundraising initiatives including customer-based activities, centre team challenges and VIP charity family days at Xscape Yorkshire.”
The first event will be the centre’s take on the national fundraiser One Great Day where money raised will be split between Yorkshire Children’s Trust and Great Ormond Street Hospital. The event on June 1 will feature a Hula Hoop challenge where customers with the longest hooping time will win prizes.
Now based out of their Halifax headquarters, the charity was first founded in March 2011 by two sets of parents who had daughters who suffered from Leukaemia – the Widdop family and the Grey family.
Panto legend, Billy Pearce, is a patron and the founder of the charity, Simon Widdop, was recently invited to a special reception at Windsor Castle in April where he met the Queen and discussed the founding of the charity with her.
The charity also has around 100 static clothing banks across Yorkshire with money raised helping to support local families.
To donate £2, text GIVE to 70450 or donate online.
Xscape Yorkshire Press Release
Xscape Home Page
#Xscape #XscapeYorkshire #Yorkshire #YorkshireCharity #CharityoftheYear
