JDW hits £19m fundraising target for cancer charity

07-Dec-2021 - Last updated on 07-Dec-2021 at 10:30 GMT

Fundraising target: JDW has raised £19m for cancer charity (Getty/ The Good Brigade)

JD Wetherspoon (JDW) has raised £19m for its chosen charity Young Lives vs Cancer to support 7,000 young cancer patients and their families.

The company started its fundraise in 2002, with money providing practical, financial and emotional support to help under 25s cope with cancer.

This could be through financial grants or helping families stay together at the charity’s Homes from Home; free places for families to stay whilst their child is undergoing treatment.

JDW people operations manager Tom Ball said the pubco was “proud” to support such a wonderful charity and looked forward to raising millions more in the coming years.

The partnerships manager of Young Lives vs Cancer (formally called CLIC Sargent) Claire Herrick said: “We are so appreciative of the fundraising undertaken by Wetherspoon staff and customers.”

Fundraising events

In September, staff at the JDW pub the Court Leet in Ormskirk, Lancashire raised £1,639 through a sponsored hike up Ben Nevis.

The pubco also hosts an annual sponsored five-a-side football tournament, which raised £400,000 in 2020 and saw more than 4,000 members of staff taking part in 17 heats across the UK in 2020,

The finalists played on Wembley, and the winners and runners up were presented with awards Sofyan, a young football fan who had his leg amputated due to cancer surgery.

The company reached the £18m fundraising target last February, and previously reached the £15m target in 2018.

Ayesha McGregor, 20, from North Ayrshire, Scotland, was supported by the charity after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2015, with grants and benefit applications alleviating the financial strain of treatment.

A huge thank you

McGregor told The Morning Advertiser in 2018: “I had to stop working so I had no income. I couldn’t go out and do things for myself or spend time with my friends. I had to travel around 40 miles to Glasgow for my treatment, which meant we were spending extra money on petrol.

“I met my CLIC Sargent social worker on my first day of chemotherapy. She helped me to address my money worries and gave me lots of emotional support. Just knowing there was someone I could talk to or ask for help with anything was great.”

McGregor said without the charity, her experience would have been “completely different” and a “much lonelier experience”, with the assistance helping her gain confidence and meet new friends.

She added: “I would like to say a huge thank you to all of the staff at JDW for raising an incredible £15m for CLIC Sargent. This is an amazing milestone and it’s impossible to put into words how much it means as it will help so many young people like me.”