A group of residents in Stanley have embraced the summer festival feel by holding their own street festival to raise money for Cancer Research UK.
Lisa Teasdale (49), her husband Tony and their friends organised a street festival on Saturday 20 July at Cloverhill Court, which saw Lady Elsie Robson join in the fun – with everyone raising over £870 for life-saving research.
The festival started at 12pm and saw fun and games for all the family. Activities included face painters, bouncy castles, live music, hot dogs and burgers, fun games and a raffle.
Lisa said: “Myself, friends and neighbours thought that Cancer Research UK was very close to our hearts – my parents suffered and survived three times between them, a neighbour’s mother and a very close friend had breast cancer and thankfully they are both here to prove that research saves lives.
“Unfortunately, there is always a sad story to any successful one, one of our close neighbours lost her battle at the young age of 33. She was the life and soul of any party and loved the street parties we have held so far. She was and still is our inspiration.
“Our first street event had a theme called ‘schools out for the summer’ and we all dressed up in school uniform, raising £1000 for charity. Then we held a ‘Cowboys and Indians’ event, followed by ‘Rock and Roll’. The street festival this year went really well and people dressed in wellies and brought camping chairs.
“To date, we’ve raised over £6000, which shows that amazing things can happen when communities come together.”
Kathryn Leverett, Cancer Research UK’s Local Fundraising Manager for the area said: “We’re really grateful to Lisa, Tony and their neighbours for such wonderful support. They’ve achieved amazing results and should be very proud of their efforts. Together we will beat cancer.”
Every hour, around 2 people are diagnosed with cancer in the North East. * But thanks to research, more people are surviving the disease than ever before. Survival has doubled in the last 40 years in the UK and Cancer Research UK’s work has been at the heart of that progress.
The charity’s life-saving work relies on the public’s support. Thanks to the generosity of its supporters, the charity was able to spend over £5 million last year in the North East on some of the UK’s leading scientific and clinical research – helping more men, women and children survive cancer.