Friday night’s fixture against Harlequins saw not only a brilliant win from Northampton that secured their place in the Anglo-Welsh Cup semi-finals, but also the return of Saints’ annual Charities Day, with fourteen charities in attendance on the night.
Each charity was given the chance to participate in a bucket shake at the fixture, as well as being able to receive a match-worn shirt from one of the starting XV and take a cut of any ticket sales the charity achieved.
Also on the night, there was a chance for a lucky charity to win a framed, signed shirt by selling the most tickets for the game – and it was BacZac and his Legacy that ended up picking up this prize.
Catching up with six of the fourteen charities so far after their final counting was finished, the charities have raised almost £1,500 during the event, with that total set to rise to around £2,000 once all the worthy causes have got their totals in.
“The whole event was a great success,” said Saints’ Head of Community Connor Fleming.
“To have fourteen charities on site all at once was an interesting challenge, but supporting lots of different worthy causes is something we’re committed to here at Saints and so to be able to support so many local and national fundraising initiatives is something we’re immensely proud of.
“Our supporters’ generosity never fails to amaze us here at Saints and we’re very pleased that we were able to help so many worthy causes on this occasion. So thank you, once again, to everyone that donated on Friday night.”
OXFAM
“A big thank you to Saints for inviting us to be part of Friday evening,” said Natahsa Terrot of Oxfam Northampton.
“It was definitely a worthwhile experience from our point of view and those of us involved really enjoyed the experience – it was the first professional live rugby all three of us had ever watched!
“We think we'll have made around £350 to £400 which is enough to provide life-saving water for 400 people in an emergency like the current Rohingya Crisis.”
We had a fab time @SaintsRugby, huge thanks to @SaintsComm & @George_North for inviting us fundraise on this match day & for allowing mascot Bernie to help and #GiveAShift in store last Friday - You too can volunteer at your nearest Oxfam https://t.co/IUvL5LfI8P @OxfamMidlands pic.twitter.com/JRm4a4N8MW
— Oxfam Northampton (@oxfamnpton) February 7, 2018
THE LEWIS FOUNDATION
Lorraine Lewis of the Lewis Foundations, who had the most bucket shakers on the night, commented: “We wanted to say thank you so much for enabling us to be a part of the charity day on Friday. We had so much fun and great support from the fans.
“We raised £183.76, which will provide 18 gift packs to cancer patients in hospital to cheer them up, which is, of course, fantastic!”
Fab evening @SaintsRugby #charity day for @uk_tlf with @Jodubes & @ItsCharacter & we won!#coys #cancer #Northampton pic.twitter.com/mrN7OYeBau
— Lorraine Lewis (@Lorraine1984198) February 2, 2018
TREE OF HOPE
“Thank you for accommodating us at Franklin Gardens on Friday evening,” Jenny Restall of the Tree of Hope said.
“We had an amazing, memorable time and managed to raise over £400 for Harry’s good cause.”
MACMILLAN
“Thank you everyone at the Saints for looking after us on Friday night. We raised £116 for Macmillan and had a great time watching the rugby,” Wendy Smith of Macmillan commented.
CHUMS UK
CHUMS UK’s Sue Clarke said: “We had a really good evening and raised £89.74 from the branded goods and collection buckets.”
BACZAC AND HIS LEGACY
“We’re over the moon to have won the signed shirt for selling the most tickets. We managed £198 in our buckets, which is brilliant,” commented Jason Forskitt from BacZac and his Legacy.
Awesome to have the BacZac logo on the shirt of @c_reinach last night at the Gardens 👍 also Cobus was overjoyed to have his picture with Zac’s sister @bethanforskitt 😊🎗#BacZacHisLegacy pic.twitter.com/D8ZQPyMk4n
— #BacZac His Legacy (@BacZac20) February 3, 2018
