People are being invited to turn their pears and apples into juice while supporting a Ripon charity.

The annual Apple Day event takes place at Ripon Walled Garden on October 9.

Ripon Community Link, a charity that helps young people and adults with learning disabilities, is staging the event.

There will also be craft stalls, food and drink, children’s activities and an appearance by local singer Ian Hepburn.

The event derives its name from the day’s main activity — apple pressing.

Sarah Johnson, fundraising manager for Ripon Community Link, said:

“The team from Old Sleningford Farm, long standing supporters of the charity, bring their apple pressing equipment and help visitors press their own apple and pear crops into juice.

“It’s a great way to use up any excess fruit and prevent it from going to waste and a really interesting and fun process to do, the whole family can get involved.”

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Ms Johnson added that Apple Day, which didn’t take place last year due to covid, was one of Ripon Community Link’s key fundraising events.

The Ripon-based charity works across two sites: Ripon Walled Garden and St Wilfrid’s Bungalow.

Apple Day is free although the charity suggests a £2 donation per person or £5 per family. For more information call 01765609229 or click here.

The Local Lotto celebrated its third birthday at the weekend having raised over £160,000 for local causes

Harrogate Borough Council set up the lotto to raise money for local voluntary sector organisations.

Players have won a combined total of £41,000.

Every 60p in £1 goes to 108 local causes, including Autism Angels, Harrogate Easier Living Project (HELP), and Woodfield Millenium Green.

Beneficiaries paid tribute to the fund.

Low Harrogate Crown Green Bowling Club said in a statement the Local Lotto had “provided a revenue stream that has enabled the bowling club to invest in new equipment”.

Ripon Community Link added the initiative had provided “a regular, reliable income stream when charitable income can be erratic, especially in such turbulent times”.

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A pie chart showing where the money goes

Cllr Sam Gibbs, chair of Harrogate Borough Council’s voluntary and community sector liaison group, said:

“These vital funds can sometimes be a lifeline for smaller community groups and I’d like to thank everyone for getting involved and signing up to play the Local Lotto.”

The Local Lotto takes place every week, with the winning draw every Saturday night.

For more information, see the local lotto’s website.

The charity fundraiser Race For Life is set to return to Harrogate today after being cancelled last year due to covid.

Five events will take place on the Stray to raise money for Cancer Research UK. There will be three, five, and 10 kilometre runs. plus two muddy obstacle courses.

Some groups have already generated significant sums ahead of the race, including Tracy and Lorraine’s Angels, which has raised £1,200.

The group. which met through their involvement in the Dishforth Military Wives Choir, will be taking on the pretty muddy obstacle course. Out of the eight in the group, two have been affected by breast cancer since 2020.

Dishforth Military Wives Choir where Tracy and Lorraine’s Angels met

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Tracy Seavers said:

“I was the 1 in 2 to have a cancer diagnosis and spent all of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 undergoing treatment.

“It has been a long hard slog but made easier by all those people who have gone before me trialling medications to make treatment kinder. Without research I would not be where I am today.”

Pretty Muddy 5K

All five events will be held on The Stray, starting with the 10 kilometre run at 9.30am and ending with the pretty muddy five kilometre obstacle course at 1.15pm.

Oatlands Drive will be shut today for the event.

Adult entry is £19.99 and child entry is £10. Men have been able to join in since 2019.

For more information about Sunday’s race for life in Harrogate, see Cancer Research UK‘s website.

A charity wellbeing and fitness event is being held in the grounds of Ripon Cathedral today to bring the community together after the pandemic and raise funds for the city’s YMCA branch.

Participants will be able to take part in yoga, meditation, dance fitness and Clubbercise, which will be led by local personal trainers and fitness instructors, who have given up their time for free, as well as enjoy head massages from Head to Toe Healing.

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Wellbeing Day for the YMCA will take place in the Dean’s Garden from 2-4pm and currently has more than 40 people signed up.

Louise Jones, who owns Oliver’s Pantry, on North Street, and is one of the organisers, said:

“We are holding it to raise funds and awareness, our objective was to have some fun and bring people together and to also help some of our local yoga and PT instructors promote what they do.

“Also from a mental health and wellbeing aspect, these activities really do help so many people locally. So it’s about feeling great, having some fun, coming together and simply seeing people together – knowing after lockdown many have struggled with coming back out in to normality.”

Four 30-minute sessions will be provided by:

Nicola Lymer – yoga (Exhale Fitness)

Frayah Humphries – Essential Yoga with Frayah

Hayley Anderson Fitness – Clubbercise

Edina – dance fitness (M-Unity)

To book a place email events@riponymca.org The suggested donation is £20 and participants should bring a mat, blanket or towel, and a drink.

A Harrogate woman who battled cancer during the coronavirus pandemic has walked more than 500 miles in a month to raise money for the charities that supported her.

Lucy Hind was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2019 and after months of treatment is on the recovery path.

Now she is feeling better, she has started to take on various challenges to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support and Harrogate Hospital & Community Charity.

At the time of publication she has raised £5,435. Her fundraising target is £7,500 and she is likely to achieve it as pledges continue to roll in. You can donate here.

The first major challenge Lucy set herself was a mammoth walk of 500 miles. Most of the walks, at around 16 miles a day, were in Yorkshire but some also took place in Manchester and Scotland.

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Joined by various friends along the way, including Lesley Jepson, she has managed to beat the original 500-mile target and looked set to reach a total of 520 miles on the last day today.

On her final walk in Bramley, near Leeds, with Kirkstall Abbey in her eyeline, Lucy told the Stray Ferret:

“We are walking the last of our walks today. We reached the 500 miles yesterday but we had another day in the month to go so we are out again.

“Before we started we thought it would be really difficult. We may have some blisters and sore limbs but when we are out walking we feel fantastic.

“These charities are so important to so many people. That’s why I want to keep going with these challenges and raise as much money as I can. I plan to finish only in 2024.”

Lifeline is a Harrogate-based charity that houses people who have been homeless, acting as a crucial stepping stone between sleeping rough and independent living.

It was set up by Carl Good and his wife Georgie in 2012 after they met a homeless man in need of help in Bower Road’s tunnel.

They partnered with a Christian social enterprise called Green Pastures that buys properties and leases them to Lifeline. The charity’s volunteers also help residents learn new skills and overcome issues that led them to sleep rough in the first place, whether that be an addiction, mental health problems or debt.

They now have five three-bedroom homes across Harrogate, four for men and one for women, and they are looking for a sixth.

80 people have been housed over the past eight years and 60% of its residents have gone on to live independently with paid work.

The Stray Ferret visited one of Lifeline’s five properties in Harrogate to meet Mr Good and a former homeless man who is living there. Lifeline prefers to keep the location of their properties private.

Stability

Liam has been living in a Lifeline home in Harrogate for four months after moving from Harrogate Homeless Project’s hostel on Bower Road.

He said he enjoys the privacy and freedom it offers.

“It’s given me stability and hope to push myself more.”

Liam hopes to stay there for a year while he continues to build his confidence and learn new skills.

“I’m learning gardening skills. I’d like to learn a language, perhaps Polish or Spanish”.

He said he particularly enjoys looking after the home which he shares with two other people.

“I like taking pride in it”.

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County lines

Mr Good says homelessness has increased in Harrogate since the charity was formed due to a range of factors including drugs, housing and the benefits system.

He said hard drugs have become much more prevalent over the past ten years with county lines drug dealers specifically targetting vulnerable people living in Lifeline homes.

He said:

“Drugs are used much more in Harrogate than they used to be”.

Another issue is many people moving into the homes have a low level of financial resilience. Mr Good had a 20-year career as a financial advisor before setting up Lifeline and said navigating the Universal Credit system is as complicated as inheritance tax or capitals gains tax.

Sky’s the limit

Lifeline hopes to give its residents some dignity back after they’ve experienced often chaotic and traumatic experiences living on the streets.

Mr Good added:

“It’s brilliant because they have their own front door key. It gives them that dignity.

“A change of mindset is sometimes what is needed, then the sky’s the limit. They first have to feel safe and have a roof over their head.

“They need someone to believe in them. We all need support and it doesn’t mean they can’t succeed in life. We all need that leg up.”

Two Knaresborough men are on day five of an epic 70-day John O’Groats to Lands End challenge.

This is no ordinary challenge because one of the men, Lucas Schofield, aims to complete the route in his wheelchair — which will add miles to the usual 874-mile distance.

Lucas has Friedreich’s Ataxia, a genetic, progressive, neurodegenerative movement disorder, but insists it won’t slow him down.

His best friend, Dan Stott, will carry most of the pair’s luggage on his back.

The pair, who aim to complete about 15 miles a day, are no strangers to insane challenges. The pair have been planning this for two years and have found a route suitable for them both.

Lucas will be pushing himself most of the way but when he does need a helping hand Daniel will be there to push him.

The usual challenges of uneven terrain and weather are compounded by the wheelchair, which has meant adjusting the route to avoid the A9 in Scotland and therefore extending the journey to over 900 miles.

Lucas Schofield on route on day three.

Lucas said:

“Our spirits are still high. People are honking their horns and giving us money.

“I was looking for some huge physical feat and this looked like just it. You’ve got to be a bit crazy to do something like this.”

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The pair have set themselves an ambitious fundraising target of £2 million. The money will go to Ataxia UK, Butterfly Thyroid Cancer Trust and CALM (Campaign against Living Miserably).

They are currently on £5,000 and with over 60 days to go are optimistic of achieving it. You can donate here.

The pair have been offered free hot drinks and asked for pictures on route. After being featured on BBC Look North they’ve even been asked for autographs.

The two men have no plans to slow down — they are already thinking of an even tougher challenge after this one.

It’s a little known fact that 2,000 more people die of cancer each year in Yorkshire than the national average.

More smoking, less exercise, pockets of deprivation and variable screening rates are among the causes.

Dr Kathyrn Scott, chief executive of Harrogate-based Yorkshire Cancer Research, is leading the fightback:

“We currently have 14,000 deaths a year. It could be 12,000 if we just had better funding and infrastructure.

“”We’ve got this hidden tragedy happening in Yorkshire and we are determined to change it.”

Dr Scott, a scientist, joined Yorkshire Cancer Research in 2008 as an office junior and worked her way up to chief executive four years ago. She’s far from the archetypal scientist, laughing a lot and joking that “I actually like people”.

Yorkshire Cancer Research, which is the largest voluntary organisation in the Harrogate district, has had remarkable financial success in recent years: income has soared from £6.2 million in 2016 to £18.7 million in 2020 and is expected to increase again this year.

By contrast, covid has decimated many charities’ finances — cutting donations, cancelling fundraising events and closing charity shops.

New Harrogate headquarters with wellbeing centre

Yorkshire Cancer Research’s coffers are bearing the fruits of royalties from a drug called Lynparza that it funded Sheffield University to develop.

Royalty income alone increased from £6.7 million in 2019 to £12 million in 2020, which is enabling the charity to press ahead with plans to expand and tackle cancer.

It has opened more shops, employed more staff and is set to announce a move to new Harrogate headquarters, which will include a wellbeing centre where people with cancer can exercise as part of their recovery.

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Wellbeing has become a major focus of the charity’s work and it hopes to open similar exercise facilities across Yorkshire. Dr Scott says:

“For years people with cancer were told to rest, sit down and have a cup of tea and although there’s still a place for that you need to exercise. It can halve the chances of some some cancers coming back.”

The charity, which is currently based at Grove Park Court, expects to reveal its new headquarters in autumn. Dr Scott says:

“We’ve found the perfect site but it’s definitely a secret for now.”

Recruiting more staff and opening more shops

The number of staff has grown from about 40 when Dr Scott took charge to 53 now and is expected to rise to 65. From September, it will trial a hybrid system whereby employees work two-thirds of the week in the office and one-third from home.

The charity, which is the largest regional cancer research charity in England, opened its fourth charity shop in Ripon this year and hopes to have 20 shops within five years.

The charity’s strong financial position has also ensured it hasn’t had to cut funding to research programmes — unlike some other cancer charities during covid. It funds £10 million of cancer research each year.

But for all its success, Dr Scott admits Yorkshire Cancer Research’s overarching ambition to save 2,000 Yorkshire lives by 2025 might not happen on schedule because of the wider impact of covid on cancer services.

Hospital services have been scaled back and people who have discovered symptoms, such as blood in their poo, have felt less inclined to bother their GPs.

But she says people in the Harrogate district have been luckier than most in Yorkshire:

“Harrogate District Hospital has been one of the more resilient hospitals in the sense that it has got a lot of services up and running again quickly. It feels like it’s been an agile organisation.”

Dr Scott, who was born and bred in Bradford but has lived in Harrogate for about 20 years, is a keen cyclist who nominates Norwood Edge and Greenhow Hill as among her favourite rides.

They’re two of the most notorious climbs in the area — Dr Scott will be hoping the charity can continue to avoid such uphill struggles in the years ahead.

Six schoolchildren have raised £647 for Saint Michael’s by baking cakes for a street sale in Harrogate.

Louisa (age 9), Chloe (10), Yasmin, Sophia, Annalise (all 11), and Ben (12) sold the cakes along with bric-a-brac to help the local hospice. They even made dog biscuits so four-legged visitors didn’t miss out.

The bake sale has become an annual fixture on Harrogate’s Valley Mount, after sisters Yasmin and Louisa started it in 2015 when they were aged just 5 and 3, along with friends Ben and Chloe.

In 2019 the group was invited to visit Saint Michael’s headquarters at Hornbeam Park to see where their funds had gone — which gave them an extra incentive to continue fundraising.

Yasmin said:

“Saint Michael’s is a really good charity because it helps people who are ill and their families too. We have a charity shop at the end of our street and we wanted to help.

“The first time we only raised £8, and every year we’ve wanted to keep beating how much we raised the last time. Last year we couldn’t do it because of covid, so we wanted to raise even more this time to make up for it.

“Our aim this time was to get £80 – so we’re actually quite surprised, we didn’t think we’d get this much!”

Chloe, Ben, Louisa and Yasmin visited Saint Michael’s to deliver the money.

The youngsters drummed up support for their event by sticking posters on lamp posts and knocking on doors to invite people to sample their baking and make donations.

Saint Michael’s Hospice helps people in the Harrogate district living with a terminal illness or bereavement.

Tony Collins, chief executive of Saint Michael’s, said:

Harrogate District Street Aid has launched a second contactless tap terminal to help homeless people.

The second terminal is at the Victoria Shopping Centre and follows in the footsteps of the first at Marks and Spencers on Oxford Street.

With each tap of a bank card, £3 goes to Harrogate District Street Aid. Since the launch in October 2019, people have donated more than £14,000 to the project.

Harrogate Borough Council is behind the project which provides financial support for those in need. Homeless people can apply for grants up to £500.

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To date the Harrogate District Street Aid has given out 16 grants for training courses, clothing for job interviews and wellbeing support.

Cllr Mike Chambers, Harrogate Borough Council’s cabinet member for housing and safer communities, said:

“Harrogate District Street Aid is about making a real change to people who find themselves on the street and I am delighted that we have been able to provide a second tap terminal in Harrogate town centre.

“Some people assume that giving a few pounds to a beggar is helping them. Sadly, in some instances it may actually keep them on the street.

“Through Harrogate District Street Aid, we can work with our partner organisations to make best use of the money that has been kindly donated, work with homeless people and make a real difference to their lives.”