A raffle held by the locally-based Village Spirit Collective to raise funds for the Community Foundation for Surrey’s Coronavirus Response Fund achieved a remarkable £1,108 – a fantastic result.

The raffle, with a prize of a bottle of hand-crafted gin made by the Collective, ended on Saturday evening with the draw shown live on Facebook. With just a few hours to go the total stood at £760 as Alpa Jasani Cox, from the Collective, posted a reminder of the draw.

Within minutes she posted again to say that Jake Andreou, manager of Merry Harriers – which is making £2,000 a month available to those in hardship – had been in touch to round the total up to £1,000. This sparked new interest and more donations came in to raise another £108 before the raffle ended at 6pm.

Given the great response it was decided to award two prizes, with a gin gift set in addition to 70cl bottle of Vann Lane or Haslemere gin.

Before the 8pm draw, Ian Cox, Head Ginfluencer at the Collective, gave an on-line cocktail making demonstration.  Laura Thurlow, chief executive of the Community Foundation for Surrey, expressed her organisation’s gratitude and outlined how its Coronavirus Response Fund was making emergency grants to support local charities and voluntary organisations working with those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic across the county.

She said it was community support, such as the raffle, that were “so vital in helping some of Surrey’s most vulnerable people at this time.”

Ian said that when they had opened the raffle two weeks ago it was hoped to raise in the region of £200, but all expectations had been surpassed.

Then came the draw. The winner of the gift set was announced as Danielle Giornadi and the bottle of gin went to Sharon Henderson.

The Village Spirit Collective selected the Community Foundation for Surrey after reading about its Response Fund on this website. More details can be found here: https://www.cfsurrey.org.uk/

Hambledon’s own Community Fund, which is also open to making grants to village organisations relating to the current pandemic, is operated under the umbrella of the Surrey foundation. Details can be obtained from: [email protected]

The fund opened by Peter de Savary, owner of the Merry Harriers, is managed by Jake Andreou, who can be contacted at: [email protected] 

If you would like know more about the Village Spirit Collective, please visit https://www.villagespiritcollective.com/