Funds from benefit gig help hospice appeal reach £300k

Published on 17/03/2011 16:56

The Evening News-backed Buy a Brick appeal to rebuild St Columba's Hospice has today hit the £300,000 mark.

The milestone was reached with the news that a benefit gig held at the Jam House had raised 6000.

The money will go towards helping the hospice's fundraising efforts for a major renovation project at its site in Granton. The scheme will see the inpatient wards rebuilt, revamped facilities for outpatients, new gardens, and the creation of a modern education centre.

The fundraising concert was the brainchild of former Bay City Roller Nobby Clark and singer Liz MacEwan, who also arranged a benefit gig for Haiti at the Queen's Hall last year.

More than 900 people attended the gig on March 6, which included performances from acts including the Gospel Truth Choir and Davie Paton of The Alan Parsons Project and Pilot, as well as Mr Clark and Ms MacEwan.

Mr Clark said: "It was wonderful, the whole night was excellent. It was packed with music - everybody had a great time. It's only the first payment because we've got purpose-made CDs with contributions from every act that was on.

"We sold some at the gig and the rest have been handed to St Columba's to sell in their shops. They're going to raise more money from that, and we're also putting together a DVD that will also go on sale towards funds."

He said he was delighted to have made the donation that pushed the fundraising total over the 300,000 mark.

He said: "It's fantastic, absolutely brilliant. They're highly delighted, and I'm over the moon that we were able to do something to help to raise more money for them."

St Columba's campaign fundraising manager Martin Lawlor said the exact total raised since the Evening News helped launch the campaign in April last year was 300,817.

He said: "We are absolutely thrilled to have reached the 300,000 milestone thanks to the Edinburgh Bands Together Concert and we'd like to give a huge thank you to Liz and her team, as well as the entire Edinburgh community, for their exceptional support of our Buy a Brick appeal.

"300,000 will go a long way towards building our new St Columba's Hospice - in fact it's enough to pay for one of our spacious and modern three bedded en-suite rooms in our new inpatient unit.

"We still have lots more bricks to sell and we have 6.1 million to raise, so please visit our website at www.bluedove.org.uk to buy a brick if you can.

"Buying a brick will help build our new home for St Columba's Hospice, which will care for more than 40,000 patients over the next 40 years."