A whopping £22,000 was raised at Greenfingers Charity’s annual Fundraising Dinner thanks to the generosity of guests and the charity’s Patron Jim Carter who really put the FUN into FUNdraising as he persuaded the charity’s friends to part with their cash.

The evening also saw Chairman, John Ashley, presenting awards to some of the 2018 outstanding Greenfingers Charity FUNdraisers.  Collecting trophies and thanks from more than 100 guests were representatives from Garden Trade News; Great British Cards and Kew Green Hotels.

Trevor Pfeiffer, Director of Potting Shed Press, collected the award on behalf of Garden Trade News and said that he was delighted to continue to attend many of Greenfingers Charity events and fully report them so that he could help encourage the complete gardening industry to support his favourite charity.

As well as providing valuable media support, Trevor has also been instrumental in encouraging support for the charity’s ‘Turn Old into Gold’ scheme, an initiative where unwanted stock provides valuable funds to help build gardens in children’s hospices. The scheme has so far this year raised over £40k for the charity.

Chris Cox, CEO of Great British Cards collected an award in recognition of the donation of more than £19k collected from sales of their Floreo range of charity cards. This attractive range of greeting cards is stocked by many garden centres, although Greenfingers Charity is hoping that more garden centres will consider stocking it now that the resulting gardens created with the proceeds are more widely known.

Also on the list of winners were the staff of Kew Green Hotels.  Collecting the award on behalf of the hotel group was Neil Sewell, MD of their Owned Hotels division. In just under two years, as well as volunteering in gardens, staff across their 55 hotels have raised more than £200k by organising individual and team events both on and off site in a myriad of different ways. Cycle challenges; car washes; raffles; cake sales and entertainment evenings have been taking place as well as endurance events such as the Jurassic Coast 100km Challenge; Snowdon climbs and marathons have helped to raise money to create magical hospice gardens.

Speaking at the dinner, John Ashley said “I would like to thank our sponsors, Vitax and Richard Jackson’s Flower Power and to the many friends of Greenfingers Charity for their generous donations of auction and raffle prizes and bids on the night which helped to make the evening such a huge success.”   Affectionately referring to the event as the “Thanksgiving Dinner” John also said a huge thank you to all those who continued to support the valuable work of Greenfingers Charity.

As the charity looks forward to its bumper 20^th Anniversary year in 2019, plans are already in place to build three more gardens in children’s hospices across the UK which will provide solace and many memory-making opportunities for hundreds of life-limited children and their families every year. 

For more information about the charity and how you can get involved, contact Linda Petrons,  Director of Fundraising & Communications by email: Linda@greenfingerscharity.org.uk or by calling the Greenfingers Charity office on 01494 674749/07908 221240.