Saving lives was the overarching theme of our Soup Dragon’s Den event.

Six sets of community groups and individuals had five minutes to passionately plead their case for why they deserved everyone’s votes to be awarded £1,000 from our Community Investment Fund. 

Chorley’s Angels First Aid Community Group kicked off the pitches, discussing the important work they do and how gaining funding for a technologically advanced Life Pak defibrillator can help increase chances of survival.

Continuing with the theme of saving lives, Beckie Ramsay gave an emotive pitch about her commitment to educating children and young adults about the dangers of open water swimming. She set up Doing it for Dylan, following the death of her son, who drowned in July 2011.

Other pitches included a dementia disco in Leyland; Fylde Food Bank wanting to make sure no-one goes hungry; a Let’s Get Talking Leyland group by CSA Support Lancashire to raise awareness and provide social activities for survivors of child sexual abuse; and Leyland Knit and Knatter, who make and donate blankets, stuffed animals and lots of other items for various charitable causes.

So many good causes, but there could only be one winner…

Congratulations to Chorley’s Angels First Aid Community Group, who will receive £1,000 from our Community Investment Fund.

David Forrest, Secretary and Training Manager of Chorley’s Angels, said: “We are absolutely thrilled. There were so many great causes that pitched, so we never thought we would win.

“The Life Pak is a wonderful little box. It has Bluetooth so information on a person’s heart can be sent to the call handler and ambulance crew to help give better chances of survival.

“As a group we have saved lives and this will help us to save more. We will also donate our current defibrillator to a community group and deliver training on how to use it, so we can continue to help other people.”

Well done to all the other groups, who gave equally compelling pitches and will receive funding of up to £200.

The night also involved lots of soup and crumble.

Diane Nash, Progress Involvement Manager, said: “We are so blessed with people who volunteer their time and effort to make the places we live better places to be.

“So thank you to everyone who took the time to prepare a pitch and to everyone who came to support these amazing causes.

“Well done to everyone and we wish you all the best of luck in your fantastic work.

“I also wish to thank St Mary’s Community Centre for allowing us to host the event there.”

  • If your group missed out this time, don’t worry as we are planning our next Soup Dragon’s Den event for November. Applications will be open from 2 October 2023.

 

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