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11

Sept 2023

Last Updated: 11/09/2023
Community
Community

Ripon fundraising tops £31,000 for orphaned Ukrainian teenager

by Tim Flanagan

| 11 Sept, 2023
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Fundraising for 15-year-old Liza Bartienieva, who was orphaned following a tragic accident that claimed the lives of her mother, brother and half sister, received a £4,000 boost at Ripon's Black Swan over the weekend.

Regulars of the Westgate pub and members of the wider community dug deep to support the teenager, whose father also died earlier this year.

But there was disappointment when it was discovered that an anonymous donation of £10,000 to the GoFundMe page set up for her will not be added to the fund.

Donna Chilcott who set up the page, which has received more than 1,300 donations, told the Stray Ferret:

"I have been contacted by GoFundMe and told that the person who donated the £10,000 has retracted their donation.
"This is disappointing, but we have still raised more than £31,000, which is an incredible amount in less than a week and when you consider that the initial target set was £3,000."




She added:

"Working alongside Sara and Kelly Hirst who run the Black Swan, we achieved this through the generosity of the Ripon community, businesses and regular pub customers and we cannot thank them enough for their kindness."




The money raised at the pub's fundraiser will be added to the GoFundMe page which stood at £27,331 this morning.

Kelly Hirst, added:

"The situation that Liza faces has captured the hearts of the people of Ripon and everyone that we approached wanted to help by either donating prizes for the raffle that we held or by putting money in the donations bucket that we had on the bar."


Live music was part of Saturday's event and among the performers was Ripon singer-songwriter Freddie Cleary, who donated more than £600 to the GoFundMe page raised while busking in the city.

Liza has been looked after by a Ripon family since the accident occurred on Sunday September 3.




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