A knock-out win for Swindon Group in housebuilders £1M giveaway

By Jamie Hill - 10 October 2019

CharitySocial EnterpriseClubs & Activities

A Swindon group has scooped a £100,000 cash award as part of a leading housebuilder’s hugely successful charity campaign supporting under-18s.

Persimmon Homes has handed out more than £1,000,000 in cash prizes to organisations across England, Scotland and Wales as a part of its Building Futures campaign, supporting three categories, sport, education & arts and health.

Scrappers Boxing Gym, managed by Swindon Children’s Scrapstore, which represented Persimmon Homes Wessex, plans to use the money to improve its facilities and provide free sessions for disadvantaged people and groups within the community who cannot afford to access the services.

Swindon Down’s Syndrome Group and Prime Theatre also represented Persimmon Homes Wessex and each won £5,000.

Persimmon Homes congratulated 96 organisations for getting to the final stage of its Building Futures competition. During a gala dinner, three finalists were each awarded the top prize of £100,000, three the second prize of £50,000 and three the third prize of £20,000. The remaining 87 finalists were handed £5,000 each.

The first, second and third prize winners were decided by a public vote and more than 250,000 votes were cast.

Olivia McCann, spokeswoman for Scrappers Boxing Gym said: “Thank you for this amazing amount money – it will make a difference to so many children’s lives.

“We currently offer free sessions for young people with disabilities and mental health issues. We’d like to introduce sessions for people who are partially sighted and many more.

“We’d also like to invest in a minibus so we can travel to areas where a lot of children aren’t able to get to our gym – we can pick them up and bring them to the gym to use our services.

“This money is going to make such a difference. I’d like to thank Persimmon Homes, anyone who voted for us and all those involved in this fantastic initiative.”

Richard Briggs, managing director of Persimmon Homes Wessex, said: “The Building Futures scheme has been a great success and we had a brilliant gala evening celebrating the fantastic work of so many organisations supporting young people in our communities.

“We have been overwhelmed by both the response to the competition, and the hard work and dedication of those involved within all the groups and we are delighted that a charity from our region was one of the big winners.”

From February to May, Building Futures gave away £128,000 to 128 organisations supporting young people in sport, education & arts and health throughout England, Scotland and Wales.

The competition culminated in a gala dinner at York Racecourse, where representatives from all the groups were on hand to receive cheques.

The £100,000 prize winner in the sport category was Scrappers Gym based in Swindon, Portsmouth Down Syndrome Association secured the award for education &arts and the Young People’s Counselling Service Annabelle Davis project in Peterborough was handed the health award.

The second prize awards of £50,000 went to Leeds Rowing Club for sport, UK Astronomy in Milton Keynes for education & arts and Norwich-based Toy Like Me for health.

Andover BMX Club scooped £20,000 for sport in third place, while Wargrave House in Newton-le Willows won the education & arts award and Butterwick Hospice Kidz Club in Stockton was handed the health award.

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