Glamorous gala night raises over £110,000 for charity set up by Hartlepool EuroMillions jackpot winners

The black-tie PFC Trust Green & Blue Fundraising Gala was held at Hartlepool College of Further Education on Saturday night.

Almost 250 people were there including Hartlepool world boxing champion Savannah Marshall, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, Jill Mortimer MP and Hartlepool United chairman Raj Singh.

It raised the incredible sum for the PFC Trust set up by Frances and Patrick Connolly after winning £114.9m in the EuroMillions Lottery in 2019.

The charity has already invested more than £400,000 in supporting local people and the money raised at the weekend will go back into the town, the Tees Valley and the North-East.

Frances said: “It was absolutely fantastic. This is just the start of many more events we have coming up to help create a much brighter future for Hartlepool.

“We are really enthused by the positivity around Hartlepool, the surrounding areas and this is a perfect example of what can be achieved.

“To have raised more than £100,000 from our first gala is just incredible and I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported this idea.

“We are all excited now to see how with this money the PFC Trust can help towards improving the lives and life chances of more and more local people.”

Leading figures from the Hartlepool and Tees Valley business community also attended along with representatives from the PFC Trust’s sister charity, the Kathleen Graham Trust, in Northern Ireland.

As well as a silent auction for many exclusive items there was a luxury raffle to win prizes including a ladies Rolex watch worth £6,000.

Singers and magicians provided top entertainment as well as Hartlepool’s own Amy Richardson’s Dance Studio, whose Emily Barnard stunned the crowd with her voice.

Shaun Hope, the chairman of the PFC Trust and college assistant principal, said: “The figure we raised has blown me away.

"I cheekily put it out there during the build-up that we should target £100,000 and I actually couldn’t believe it when we had reached £102,000 without the silent auction.

“It is truly phenomenal and largely because everything was donated."

He added: “We want to say thank you to everyone. We don’t do things in isolation, we do things in partnership.

"It is great that the PFC Trust will get the recognition but it is through our partnerships, like with other charities, that we have managed to achieve this.

“And the biggest thank you is to the army of volunteers who made it work. We had 40 different volunteers all chopping away to make things run smoothly.

"When everyone was nursing a hangover on Sunday morning, they were all back at the College cleaning up.”

The PFC Trust, which was created to help the people of Hartlepool, will be announcing more big plans in the weeks ahead.

If you would like to work with the PFC Trust or for more information about the charity visit www.thepfctrust.org