Highlights
- SPAR North of England donated £5,800 to local charities via Allwyn’s Share the Win scheme.
- Beneficiaries: Willowbrook Hospice, CHUF, Macrae House & Andy’s Man Club.
- Highlights community generosity and James Hall & Co. Ltd’s local support.
SPAR North of England has donated £5,800 to local charities after stores were rewarded by Allwyn following a trio of high value customer National Lottery wins.
Allwyn’s ‘Share the Win’ scheme rewards retailers and stores which have sold high tier winning tickets of £50,000 or more to customers, including through EuroMillions, Lotto and Thunderball tickets or National Lottery Scratchcards.
Off the back of three customers purchasing winning tickets at SPAR Prescot Road in St Helens, Bargain Booze Longbenton in Newcastle, and SPAR Murton in County Durham, all owned by James Hall & Co. Ltd, store teams demonstrated their charitable nature after receiving a little bit extra in this month’s pay packet.
SPAR Prescot Road’s team chose to donate £2,100 to Willowbrook Hospice which serves St Helens and Knowsley, and TV actor and comedian Johnny Vegas who is a regular customer visited in his official capacity as charity Patron alongside Hospice staff to receive the cheque.
The store team at Bargain Booze Longbenton picked children’s cardiac charity CHUF, which is based at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital, as the recipient of £2,000, and SPAR Murton chose to give Macrae House Community Centre and Andy’s Man Club an equal share of £1,700.
Johnny Vegas said, “I am immensely proud to receive this cheque on behalf of Willowbrook Hospice from the team at SPAR Prescot Road, a store in the heart of the community. This is St Helens, and folk here give back to their community.
“Despite living through a period of trying financial times, the staff have still decided to donate a proportion of their reward to Willowbrook rather than keep it all. It’s a charity which means an awful lot to me for the care they provided for my dad before he passed away.”
Fiona Drummond, Company Stores Director at James Hall & Co. Ltd, said, “Allwyn’s scheme to reward retailers is a great idea and I am so pleased that our store teams have chosen to donate some of the money to charities close to them both geographically and where there is a personal community connection.
“In every case, we know the donations have gone to fantastic causes, and it gives me great pride that we have helped local charities at a time when fundraising is incredibly challenging.”
James Hall & Co. Ltd is a fifth-generation family business which serves a network of independent SPAR retailers and company-owned SPAR stores across Northern England six days a week from its base at Bowland View in Preston.