Life changing

Lottery millionaires create giant Gingerbread playhouses

An army of National Lottery millionaires have helped create four beautiful gingerbread houses for good causes across the country. They were presented to the charities as part of #GivingTuesday a day set aside to encourage people to ‘do good stuff’ following the shopping frenzy of Black Friday.

The millionaire workforce with a combined wealth of over £150M worked tirelessly over 24 hours to transform the wooden cabins into unique Gingerbread–inspired playhouses, which will now benefit hundreds of children. More than 60 National Lottery winners, including former builders, painters and decorators, and carpenters, got involved, donating thousands of pounds in materials and gifts for the charities.

The projects were Liverpool’s Zoë’s Place Baby Hospice, Cardiff’s Bobath Centre for Children with Cerebral Palsy, the Hamelin Trust’s ‘Roots & Shoots’ project in Essex and the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust. The four charities have all, thanks to you, previously received National Lottery funding to support their great work.

Win and Give

Thanks to you, National Lottery players, Zoë’s Place Baby Hospice in Liverpool, has just received £195k from the Big Lottery Fund to provide three nurses for the next three years. Zoë’s Place provides incredible palliative, respite and end–of–life care to very young children aged from birth to five years suffering from life–limiting or life–threatening conditions.

Winners helping to create the gingerbread house magic in Liverpool included some of the area’s biggest ever winners, including: Brian Caswell, from Bolton, who won £24M in 2009; Sharon and Nigel Mather, from Bowdon, who won £12M in 2010; Kevin and Michele Jones, from Crewe, who won £6M in 2016 and Emma Dunkley, from Formby, who won £6.5M in 2009.

Emma Dunkley said, “Zoë’s Place has a magical feel about it and the staff are incredible. We are all so pleased to be able to provide such a fun gingerbread playhouse which will hopefully bring lots of joy to the young people here, their siblings and their families.”

Plenty of paint

The millionaires used more than 100 litres of paint, 60 paintbrushes, 30 rollers, 40 bespoke wooden shapes, six sacks of fake snow and 25 meters of twinkly lights, and the finished cabin bought tears of joy to the Zoë’s Place team.

Flo Berquist, Head of Care at Zoë’s Place, said, “We are absolutely overjoyed that National Lottery winners have chosen to come to us and spend their time creating something so wonderful. We could never have dreamed of owning something like this. It is absolutely fantastic and will bring hours of joy to so many children, including the siblings of our poorly children.

“The recent National Lottery funding is an essential income channel for the Hospice. It has been essential to fund specialist nursing staff concentrating on enhancing the experience and day–to–day care for all of our babies. We have received funding in the past for a new multi–sensory light room which continues to excite and put smiles on faces. We are overwhelmed by the support which The National Lottery gives to us.”

Projects

The four Lottery–funded charities to receive the gifts are just a tiny sample of the hundreds of thousands of projects across the UK to benefit from funding, thanks to National Lottery players. Over £30 million is raised every week for Good Causes through the sale of National Lottery games – a total of £36 billion has been shared among over 510,000 projects over the past 22 years, covering a diverse range of sectors from arts, heritage, sport, education, environment, health and charity.

The National Lottery has been changing the lives of winners and supporting good causes across the UK since 1994. In that time, there have been more than 7,000 new millionaires created and by playing The National Lottery you raise over £4 million for Good Causes every dayΔ.

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