Mentmore Arts Festival raises £5,000 for local charity WheelPower

The Mentmore Arts Festival has been taking place for 15 years and as the event has grown in size so have the visitor numbers and through the sale of art, refreshments, and raffle tickets they have raised an amazing £100,000 for charitable causes.

This year WheelPower, the national charity for wheelchair sport was one of those beneficiaries and the team based at Stoke Mandeville Stadium were delighted to receive a cheque for £5,000 to support disabled people to live healthier and more active lives.

Stephanie Johnston, Mentmore Arts Festival committee member said, “After waiting for two years everyone was even more excited to attend this year. The village of Mentmore provides a beautiful setting for the event, with art displayed in the village hall and the church. It was another bumper year, with record sales and we are so proud that we have been able to raise such a wonderful amount of money in charitable donations.”

Jo Hall, WheelPower Fundraising said, “We can’t thank the Mentmore Arts Festival committee enough for selecting WheelPower to be one of their charity recipients for 2022. The £5,000 donation will go a long way towards our work of helping disabled children and adults take part in sport, particularly around the Buckinghamshire/Bedfordshire area. We thoroughly enjoyed attending the festival in May and sharing our WheelPower story with the visitors.”

Caroline Gates, Vice Chair of the Mentmore Arts Festival added, “We were delighted to be able to support WheelPower this year and help bring awareness of their life changing work to the fore. As well as giving the money it’s about raising the profile of the local charities we support and it was great that two WheelPower volunteers were able to come along to the event and engage with everyone who stopped by. Finally, I would like to say thank you to our local community for supporting the Arts Festival this year and for creating such an amazing atmosphere for our visitors. We have so many volunteers who help with stewarding, selling raffle tickets, selling and making refreshments, baking cakes and we really couldn’t do it without them.”