My View, Cheryl Sadler: £26,000 charity boost from shoppers

That is simply an amazing amount of money.

And it is money which has gone to a whole host of local and national charities and it is all thanks to you.

We are so impressed by this grand total.

We really wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has donated each and every penny.

The donations throughout the year were made up of bags of clothes and toys which then raise cash for Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice and cash donations from our events.

The money from those has gone to the Yorkshire Wildlife Foundation, British Heart Foundation, the Poppy Appeal, Guide Dogs, Cats Protection, Marie Curie, a birds of prey charity and Breast Cancer Care.

Visitors to the centre have also supported the Fire Fighters Charity by donating money in return for getting their cars washed by a team of hard-working firemen.

This Christmas you once again showed your generosity, despite it being a costly time of year.

That generosity was seen by people giving thousands of toys to the Trax FM Toy Appeal, and donating cash at our special events which were supported by Kingfisher Primary school and Doncaster School for the Deaf .

That generosity was also seen by people popping money in the donation tins at our Christmas santa’s grotto – raising almost £2,000 for the Thorne Rural Lions, who will be turning this into a donation from us all to the local hospital.

Your donations have made us extremely proud of the town and of visitors to the town.

That now raises a question for us.

That is, how do we top that in 2016?

We are already busy planning lots of family fun events to take place throughout the coming year.

And we are working with charities to help to support their 2016 appeals.

There is lots to look forward to with Sport Relief and the Olympics and let’s not forget that this is going to be a big year for the town.

One of the reasons for that is that the Tour de Yorkshire will be bringing participants and spectators to Doncaster in April.

Lakeside Village will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in August so we want to make this year even bigger and better.

And we know that with your help and support we can do that.

Thank you Doncaster and thank you customers.

You continue to amaze us.