Leamington panto success boosts baby hospice

A record-breaking £11,073 was amassed by audiences who donated during the recent run of Dick Whittington at Leamington’s Royal Spa Centre. The money is going to Zoe’s Place hospice.

Last year the theatre approached Zoe’s Place with the opportunity to be the official charity of 2018 and to have a presence at every performance with their donation buckets to raise money and awareness.

Now this fabulous windfall is going towards nursing care and nursing hours to ensure the hospice is running at full capacity and able to offer extensive respite hours.

Volunteer co-ordinator, Elly Petrruci said: “I’m just beside myself to know we raised so much money. I couldn’t ever have imagined such an amazing response. Everyone I met in connection with the panto was just amazing. Whoever is lucky enough to receive this wonderful opportunity next year, please feel free to share my contact if I can be of any help to them.”

Every year, the Royal Spa Centre gives one charity the chance to raise money and make the most of the huge footfall of people coming through their doors throughout December due to their increasingly popular pantomime. Last year approx. 24,234 people walked through the door throughout December making it a great opportunity to reach out to people and draw their attention to worthy causes.

Programming and marketing Manager, Laura Wyatt said, “It’s great that we are able to offer charities the opportunity to raise the profile of their cause through our audience attendance and we are always so amazed and grateful of our customers generosity. People come to panto to have a great time with their family but it has always been important to us that we use this opportunity to raise awareness about much needed causes and ask for help to make a difference to peoples lives who are less fortunate.

"Everyone gets on board and the cast members make an emotional plea after the performance which I think resonates with a lot of our customers, especially at Christmas when for a lot of people it can be a struggle.”