Furnley House, launch Foundation and raise £15,000 for Alex’s Wish in one evening.

June 26, 2019 2:57 pm

Saturday 1st June was a spectacular evening in Leicester. Over 200 friends, family and clients of Furnley House gathered at Winstanley House on the launch night of the Furnley House Foundation. The evening was hosted by local celebrity, Ian Stringer and guests enjoyed a drinks reception, fabulous food, fantastic entertainment from local band, the Atlantic’s and the opportunity to buy some amazing auction prizes all with the aim of raising funds for great causes.

The Furnley House Foundation was born out of Furnley House’s ambition to create opportunities and improve the lives of the local community. The Foundation aims to help two charities with donations and offer a grant scheme allowing local community projects and groups to apply for sums of money.

Stefan Fura, Founder of Furnley House said “Last year, we raised £30k in one night, we were incredibly pleased, this year, we needed to do something to top that but also give us the chance to help more people because we know what a difference money can make to those in need. The Furnley House Foundation was created to help us provide opportunities and make sure we’re doing something to improve the lives of our clients and local communities.”

Pleased to be supporting charities

In 2018, Furnley House raised £40,000 for Alex’s Wish and helped fund vital research into Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, helping this generation of children become the last to die or the first to live. In 2019, the Foundation Trustees felt it was important to continue supporting Alex’s Wish to help them find a cure and Alex’s Wish were chosen as the first main charity.

Emma from Alex’s Wish said “I was very excited to be asked to be a Trustee and delighted that the Foundation had chosen to support Alex’s Wish for another 12 months – the Summer Ball was a fantastic night to launch the Foundation and a everyone had such a great time – the amount raised on the night was amazing and we’re really pleased some of this will go towards curing Duchenne and saving lives of young children.”

The second charity chosen by the Trustees was CALM – Campaign Against Living Miserably. CALM aim to prevent male suicide – the single biggest killer of men under 45. The Trustees and Furnley House staff have experienced the trauma of suicide and felt the effects it has on those left behind, so they wanted to work with a charity that is focused on providing support for those going through difficult times and CALM were a great example of how they’re working to prevent suicide.

Lucy, Fundraising Manager from CALM said “We were ecstatic when the Furnley House Foundation chose to work with us, they had a rigorous process to choose their two charities which shows how much they care about the causes they’re raising money for. The Foundation Trustees are really keen to raise loads for charity and the Summer Ball is just the beginning – we’re looking forward to working with the Furnley House Foundation closely over the next 12 months.”

On the night

Ian Stringer was a fantastic host for the night, he drew the winners of the raffle which gave away a stay at Winstanley House and also the chance to win a Maserati for a weekend. He kept the attention of the crowd during the entire evening and managed to sell all the auction items above the reserve prices, helping the Foundation raise a whopping £38k!

The evening was sponsored by local and national businesses including B Audio Visual, Red Monkey Play, Mark J Rees, Corporate Motion Film, Deepbridge Capital and T Rowe Price.

Stefan went on to say “We smashed our target to beat last year’s total and are looking forward to lots more activities throughout the year to help raise enough funds to help make a difference in our local communities and raise the profile of these two great charities. We’re already planning the Summer Ball for 2020 and it will be bigger and better than this year!”

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