Over the Christmas period and into January, Morecambe Business Improvement District (BID) managed to raise a total of £4,000 for local charities.  The charities that benefitted are the Morecambe Bay Food Bank, Galloways Society for The Blind, Morecambe Winter Gardens Trust and Escape2Make (E2M). Each charity received £1,000.

Over the Christmas period Morecambe BID held the Morecambe Sparkle Switch-On weekend highlights of which were a stunning laser and firework show at Switch On at which the lights were switched on by Craig Charles, a mini Morecambe Music Festival on the Friday night, a sold-out ‘Evening With Eden’ at The Platform on the Saturday night and then Craig Charles playing to a packed Winter Gardens on the Sunday night. These events enabled BID to donate any profit to the above charities.

E2M are the Eden Project’s chosen local charity and funds raised from the sale of BID’s ‘Independent Morecambe’ calendar, which went into a second print due to demand, were donated to E2M.

Jenny Natusch, Founder of E2M said: “We are delighted that The Eden Project have chosen E2M as the charity that they want to receive all of the funding from the sale of their 2020 calendars. Every penny of this generous donation will make a huge difference to some of the twelve thousand 11-18 year olds in the area who have very little to do outside of school.

“The money will go towards providing free creative programmes that feed into community events, designed to make a real difference in the area (e.g. an Outdoor Community Pizzeria and a Cabaret for The Over 70s).  Workshops start to roll out this summer and include everything from ice cream making to film making and from gardening to engineering. Once E2M is established young people will have a huge choice of free programmes to sign up to which will help them discover their talents and find like-minded friends. It’s also something to put on their CV or talk about in job interviews. We are delighted The Eden Project are taking the wellbeing of young people in the area so seriously and are looking forward to a continuing partnership with them.”

John O’Neill, Manager of Morecambe BID, commented: “Such is the response and generosity from the local community that BID managed to raise an extra £4,000, over and above our costs. The money has gone directly to local charities where it will go the furthest. We are proud to be able to play our part in the community.

“One of the events we ran on the Christmas weekend, ‘An Evening with Eden’ was filmed by Morecambe Bay Moviemakers, with the idea that everyone will be able to see the presentation. It was important that it was filmed because the Eden message is so much more than just being a tourist attraction. It has benefits that will ripple over the whole district, and further.

“It will be a total enabler in areas such as health, education, social, local economy, science, education and, of course, tourism. The six speakers were chosen to help spread the various messages.”

The videos (six separate segments, or one full length movie) are available on Morecambe BID’s YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DNShLrwjRU

The expert panel who spoke to and took questions from a sold-out audience included Si Bellamy OBE, head of Eden Project International, local executive GP Dr Andy Knox, tourism lecturer Dr David Jarrett, Professor Dame Sue Black from Lancaster University, Professor Vanessa Toulmin from the Winter Gardens, and Wes Johnson, principal of Lancaster and Morecambe College. The event was hosted by Beyond Radio’s Greg Lambert.