St Mary's Fleetwood

With five of us hoping to go on the Youth Pilgrimage to Lourdes, we needed to raise so much money, that we had to start as soon as possible!
First, we held a ‘brainstorming’ meeting to gather our ideas. We wanted to include the parishioners as much as possible, by holding social events. We felt this was a good opportunity to bring parishioners of all ages together.

We started with an afternoon matinee and refreshments, showing a collection of short Laurel & Hardy films on a big screen – this was really popular and tickets sold very fast. Following this, the parish organised a bottle bingo evening, where WE provided the musical entertainment!!!
In the meantime, we received many generous donations of money and raffle prizes for our various events. We bag packed one Saturday afternoon at a local shop and raised £200.

Our final fundraiser was a celebration of Our Lady of Lourdes’ Feast Day, which we marked with live entertainment from a local folk band (who were brilliant) with hotpot and apple pie. Whilst the band sang “Athenrye” we ran images of the youth at Lourdes and everyone applauded. The raffle alone raised £300 and it was a really successful evening. The band have offered their services again for next year, which is great!