The team at Tong Garden Centre has announced that Leeds based children's cancer charity, Candlelighters, will be its Charity of the Year for 2018.

Tong aims to raise £10,000 for the charity that supports Yorkshire families facing children's cancer through a series of fund-raising events and collection boxes at the tills.

Staff at Tong voted unanimously to support Candlelighters and a charity committee has been established to organise events to reach the total pledged. The committee is led by marketing assistant, Pete Casci, who said: "Our team of 143 staff all know someone whose lives have been affected by childhood cancers, so we're passionate about helping Candlelighters to fight children's cancer in our local community.

"We're planning a whole host of fun initiatives for staff and customers to get involved with, and we're launching our campaign with the Maserati Tour De Yorkshire Ride led by our Managing Director, Mark Farnsworth. We'll be sharing all our events and initiatives on our facebook page and inviting everyone to join in."

Brian Curran, Corporate Fundraiser for Candlelighters is delighted with Tong's support: "Tong's support is invaluable. Last year, we embarked on a special project to renovate a property for use by families whose children are being treated at Leeds Children's Hospital for cancer.  We need to raise £600,000 to realise our dream of transforming it into a quiet and calm place where families can be near their children as they battle against childhood cancer."

Candlelighters supports families facing children's cancer in Yorkshire. The charity gets involved in many different projects to help ordinary families who are facing extraordinary circumstances and provides support on the wards, at its family support centre and in the community.

Tong Garden Centre occupies a 14 acre site in Tong village. It is one of Yorkshire's biggest garden centres with 110,000 square feet of retail space and parking for up to 1,000 cars.

Photograph caption: Tong team members with Brian Curran, centre Brian Curran with Tong Garden Centre staff.