Leamington pub team thank community for supporting Christmas fundraising for local charity

The team at a pub in Leamington are thanking the community for supporting their Christmas fundraising which was in aid of a local charity.

Michelle Ramsay and the team at the Windmill Inn in Tachbrook Road found a way to hold their usual annual raffle to help raise money for Helping Hands.

Helping Hands works with vulnerable and homeless people in the district by providing much-needed help through a soup kitchen, their cafe in Warwick, skills training and their ‘House2Home’ service, which provides household items that the tenants could not afford to buy themselves.

Michelle, who has been the landlady of the pub for eight years, said: "We usually hold a Christmas music quiz and a raffle the last Sunday before Christmas due to covid we could not do the quiz so we worked hard on pushing the raffle through our windmill Facebook and giving flyers out with the takeaway orders.

"Then to give it one last big push I decided I would stand outside the pub as Santa and give out free hot chocolate and Christmas biscuits all done in a covid safe way.

"Our customers, Amanda Smith and myself collected and bought prizes for a big raffle, everybody was so generous on buying tickets and donating prizes it was amazing."

As well as dressing up as Santa and an elf, Michelle and Amanda also went out decked out in Christmas decorations when they delivered Sunday dinners to their vulnerable customers.

Michelle said: "We thought it would cheer them up and they loved it."

The team would like to thank the community for their support and for all the donations.

Michelle said: "We managed to raise £650 - this beat our usual Christmas quiz and raffle as it was opened up to more people, we had money donations bought to the pub, posted through the door bought ticket over the phone - it was outstanding."

"I would like to say a massive thanks to all who bought tickets or made donations this exceeded every think we could have wished to achieve. it has been terrible year for all but with the help of our lovely customers we were able to support our local community."