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.”
Saturday’s fundraiser at the Black Swan raised £4,000.
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.”
Freddie Cleary
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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Lucky supporter will win Pateley Bridge flat on Christmas Day, promises cave owner
The owner of the Stump Cross Caverns tourist attraction has confirmed that one lucky supporter will win a flat in Pateley Bridge on Christmas Day.
The news came after a £130,000 crowdfunding target, which had to be reached by December 25, was achieved yesterday with just a few days to spare.
Lisa Bowerman and fiancé Nick Markham launched their Crowdfunder campaign in autumn 2021, offering their one-bedroom flat on Pateley Bridge High Street as a raffle prize and asking supporters to buy tickets for £10 each.
It took 20 months for the campaign to break through the £100,000 barrier, but just a week to raise the final £30,000.
In a Facebook post, Lisa said:
“This is going to happen now! We will definitely be giving this apartment away on Christmas Day!”
Read more:
- Stump Cross Caverns owners live underground for 105 hours
- Stump Cross owners in last push to raise £130,000 target by Christmas Day
The couple are raising funds to pay for a much-needed specialist lighting system at Stump Cross, whose limestone caves stretch for miles under Greenhow Hill. The new German-made illuminations can resist the cold and damp conditions underground, and cost around £200,000.
Lisa said:
“The profits that we have made as a business would normally be used to reinvest in the business, however they are being reabsorbed due to the rising cost of living/bills.
“It almost seems even more appropriate now than before to give the flat away on Christmas Day and make at least one person’s life easier whilst going through these tough times. £10 could turn into £130,000 for someone.
“Monies raised will in turn help to protect and preserve a little bit of history for our future.”
Tickets for the draw will still be on sale right up until midday on Christmas Day, unless the next target, of £200,000, is reached first. The draw will be held in the afternoon of December 25.
Lisa Bowerman in Stump Cross Caverns, whose strange formations were created by dissolved limestone in dripping water over thousands of years.
Stump Cross Caverns were formed around 500,000 years ago, but only discovered by lead miners in the mid-1800s. Ancient animal bones have been recovered from the caves, some of them from the last Ice Age, including wolves, reindeer, bison, and wolverines.
Stump Cross owners in last push to raise £130,000 target by Christmas DayA crowdfunding campaign offering people the chance to win a flat in Pateley Bridge is set to end on Christmas Day.
Lisa Bowerman and her fiancé Nick launched their competition through Crowdfunder 20 months ago and hope to reach their £130,000 target by the time it closes at midday on December 25.
At the time of going to press, it had generated £103,000.
The campaign aims to raise enough money to install new lighting at Stump Cross Caverns. The current lights have been in place since 1948.
Ms Bowerman said this would not only “preserve and protect the cave” but also be more sustainable and environmentally friendly because the system would use less energy. The lights will only come on if there are people in the cave. Ms Bowerman also said that the new system would minimise algae growth.
Tickets to win Ms Bowerman’s one-bedroom apartment on Pateley Bridge High Street cost £10.
An image of the flat.
Ms Bowerman said:
“Once the winner is announced they can pick up the keys there and then.”
She explained there would need to be discussions with solicitors to change the property into the winner’s name, but after that it’s theirs.
The couple have held multiple fundraisers to draw attention to the campaign, including their 105-hour sleepover in the caves that took place in October 2021.
Lisa and Nick have also been taking part in a 105-day bike challenge to raise money for the campaign. The number of days relates to Geoff Workman, who lived in the cavern for 105 days on his own in 1963.
More recently, they held another sleepover in the cave, where they took 12 people down with them from 9pm to 9am.
Ms Bowerman said:
“It was full within hours of launching the idea.”
However, of the 12 that Ms Bowerman took down, only eight lasted the full 12 hours because of the cold and damp.
Read more:
- Stump Cross Caverns owners live underground for 105 hours
- Stump Cross owners to raffle their £130,000 flat
In the lead up to the closing date, Ms Bowerman has been doing “everything she can” to get the message out there, including updating social media platforms including TikTok “every waking minute” to try to reach as many people as possible.
Lisa and Nick want to improve the cave lighting.
Stump Cross Caverns has awarded free meals in the cafe and cinema to the public as part of their marketing drive.
Ms Bowerman said that when the lights are being fitted, the caves will close for a period of time.
If the campaign does not reach its target of £130,00 by midday on Christmas day then the supporters will receive a full refund and the campaign will be declared unsuccessful.
Click here to visit the Crowdfunder page.
Ripon dad hosting charity Tractor FestA Ripon dad is hosting a charity Tractor Fest after his newborn son recently spent time in intensive care at Leeds General Infirmary with a life-threatening condition.
Tom Tate’s partner Sarah gave birth to their son, Freddie, three-and-a-half months ago.
But soon after he was born he was diagnosed with Atrial flutter, a type of abnormal heart rhythm that makes the heart beat too quickly.
Mr Tate said it was a frightening time for the family. He said:
“When he was born straight away we knew something wasn’t right. In a baby, Atrial flutter is life threatening.
“But after two weeks in intensive care at the LGI, they got him right, and they looked after me and Sarah.”
Freddie is thankfully now at home and fighting fit, but his dad said he wanted to repay the hospital by raising money for the LGI Neonatal Unit through the Leeds Hospitals Charity.
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Mr Tate is a member of West Yorkshire Tractor and Engine Club and around 80 vintage and modern tractors from the club will be attending F. Tate and Sons garden centre at Studley Road on September 24.
The charity tractor fest will also include a raffle with prizes up for grabs including an overnight stay at Grantley Hall. Entry is free but visitors are encouraged to make a donation.
Mr Tate added:
“We’re really pushing it to raise a lot of money for the charity. We definitely want to make it an annual thing.”
Stump Cross owners to raffle their £130,000 flat
The owners of Stump Cross Caverns are to raffle their flat in Pateley Bridge to raise more money for the site.
Lisa Bowerman and Nicholas Markham hope to sell 20,000 tickets for £10 each to generate funds to maintain the ancient limestone caves.
The couple. who live on the site of the caves, recently raised £70,000 by raffling their camper van to keep the business open.
But they say more money is needed for essential work — hence the new crowdfunding appeal.
They’re also campaigning to get Chancellor Rishi Sunak to visit the caves after previous bids for grants were unsuccessful.
Ms Bowerman said:
“I’m desperate for Rishi to see our amazing cave. I’ve got his hard hat ready. We bring 60,000 visitors to the Yorkshire Dales each year and if he can see what we do I think he would agree to help us.
“I don’t think it should be down to the public to help us, but I’m grateful they do. The government should be helping.”
Read more:
The caves are due to reopen on May 17 and Ms Bowerman said she expected the best year ever.
But she estimated the couple had lost £500,000 over the last year of enforced closure and lack of government support meant further funds were required for essential work, such as renewing the lighting system.
A Save the Caves petition to get Sunak to listen to their plea for help has already received almost 2,500 signatures.
Other heritage organisations, including Kents Cavern, in Torquay, Margate Caves and Creswell Crags in Derbyshire received financial boost from the government’s Culture Recovery Fund to help them through the pandemic, said Ms Bowerman.
But Stump Cross Caverns has not received anything.
Ms Bowerman said:
“Now that we have raised the funds to reopen and secure jobs we need to focus on the essential maintenance and repairs, including the renewal of the caves lighting system.
“It’s a massive blow to us to have to sell another personal possession but we’ve got nowhere else to turn. Unlike other heritage sites, similar to ours, who’ve benefited from funding, we’ve been left to fend for ourselves.
“Over an 18-year period we’ve worked hard to sustain a successful business, but this pandemic and the associated loss of trade has left us fighting for survival.”
She added the caves played a vital role in supporting the wider Dales economy because they boosted tourism to other areas.
Harrogate shops raise money with ‘Giraffle’ for food bankA group of independent Harrogate shops have joined forces to raise money for the town’s Trussell Trust food bank by organising a “Giraffle” .
Watermark Gallery, on Royal Parade, came up with the idea and worked with children’s illustrator Jane Ray to get it up and running.
Jane created a five-feet tall paper mache giraffe based on the main character of a book called “Zeraffa Girraffa” in 2014.
Just as the character of that book travelled far to her new home in Paris, Zeraffa is travelling around the Harrogate district in October and November.
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So far she has been seen in the windows of Catherine Smith Vintage, Bespoke Eyewear and Westmorland Sheepskins.
The next stop will be the Little Ripon Bookshop. When her tour comes to an end, Zeraffa will be raffled off to one lucky winner. The tickets will be drawn on December 18.
Tickets to enter the raffle are £5 and are available from Watermark Gallery. A total of 100 tickets have been sold so far and another 100 are on sale.
Liz Hawkes, owner of the Watermark Gallery, hopes that the “Giraffle” will raise £1,000 for charity. She said:
“Zeraffa was a real talking point in the window of our gallery, and we had countless enquiries about buying her. I think people saw her as a ray of sunshine during a somewhat challenging time.
“This gave us the idea of creating an ongoing artwork initiative to unite local independent retailers as well as raising money for a great local cause.”