CHARITIES BENEFIT WITH £16K FESTIVAL BOOST

Charity partners at Lancashire’s largest live music festival are to benefit from more than £16,000 in donations.

The festival’s three charities – Trinity Hospice, Two Pints Deep and Homeward Bound - raised in excess of £8,000 through bucket collections, while Lytham Festival has donated a further £8,000 to be split across the charities, giving a total amount raised of £16,649.

Festival co-founder Peter Taylor said: “Once again our charity partners have worked tirelessly to encourage people to donate to their causes while raising the profile of their very worthy work.

“I thank everyone who has donated to support these charities and I am delighted we have been able to top up that amount by donating £8,000.

“Well done to everyone involved and we look forward to working with more charity partners next year when we will also celebrate the 15^th anniversary of Lytham Festival.”

The charities were all allocated their own headline night at Lytham Festival with an army of volunteers from each collecting donations from festival-goers.

Blackpool-based Trinity Hospice, which this year is celebrating 40 years of exceptional palliative and end-of-life care for people across the Fylde coast, led the way on the opening night of the festival joining the sold-out crowd for a headlining set with Stevie Wonder.

Trinity Hospice’s Community Engagement Officer, Gemma Webster, said: “We are thrilled with the amount raised for our expert care at this year’s Lytham Festival. This year is one of celebration for us as Trinity marks 40 years of compassionate care across the Fylde coast, so it was wonderful to share that with the thousands of people who came to enjoy the legendary Stevie Wonder.

“Our team of 30 volunteers had a fantastic night speaking to festival goers about our vital work, and the difference they were helping to make by being on Lytham Green.

“We so grateful to be a charity partner for Lytham Festival once again, to our volunteers who donated their time to help us raise this fantastic amount of money, and to every single person who took the time to speak to us and make a donation so that hospice care can live on for all who need it.”

Lytham based suicide prevention charity Two Pints Deep was the partner joining the legions of fans partying with Justin Timberlake.

Luke Barrow, founder and CEO of Two Pints Deep, said: “We are extremely grateful for the amazing amount of money raised at Lytham Festival by the generous festival goers and the festival itself. 

“As a charity less than one year old, this money will really help us kickstart our programmes across the North West and the UK as we work to break stigmas and start conversations in our unique 'Two Pints Deep' way. Our volunteers had dozens of conversations on the night with some people at the festival affected by mental health, and we felt honoured to be a part of those chats.”

While Homeward Bound who attend found pets, both alive and deceased, across Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre with the aim of reuniting them with their owner, brought their army of volunteers for the closing night of the festival with headliners Simple Minds and Texas.

Wendy Embisu Mulela, founder and chair of trustees for Homeward Bound, said: “Being a part of Lytham Festival meant an incredible amount to our charity in numerous ways - it gave all of our volunteers the opportunity to get together to enjoy the day, it provided us the opportunity to talk to people about our charity, and one of the amazing things was the sheer number of people going out of their way to come to tell us how much we had helped them.

“And of course, it gave us the opportunity to raise much needed funds to carry on our valuable work within our local community. Many thanks to Lytham Festival providing us with these opportunities and for looking after us so well.”