Lichfield auctioneer Richard Winterton, who helped organise the event and gave a welcome address on the night, said: “What a brilliant turnout! This was the first ‘Connect With Your Community’ event promoting We Love Lichfield.

“We timed it so people could drop in after work and it was brilliant to see so many charities call in for advice as well as businesses networking.

“A special thanks to The Hub for hosting a brilliant event in their amazing building.

“With more than 50 people attending and lots of people engaging with We Love Lichfield, either finding out more about how to apply for grants or how they can help raise funds, it was great to see such a buzz for this charitable fund which means so much to us all.”

And the event was made extra special with two significant donations firstly from Richard Winterton, who presented a cheque for £1,200. Then Wai-Lee Ho of The Ruby Restaurant, who has seen the benefits of the We Love Lichfield grant giving, handed over a cheque for £1,000 raised during the Chinese New Year celebrations.

Simon Price, Patron of We Love Lichfield, said: “There is so much voluntary work going on across Lichfield District that we wanted to bring people together to do two things.

“Connect with businesses – show them how the voluntary sector helps their customers, their staff, and what they can do to support us.

“Secondly, reach out to new and existing voluntary groups who haven't applied to us for funding.

"With over 50 people attending our first event of this type, I can't wait for our next one." 

Community fund We Love Lichfield has distributed grants of just over £300,000 to more than 200 groups across Lichfield District since beginning 10 years ago.

Companies and individuals are welcome to donate or fund-raise and all money is invested through a permanent endowment fund by registered charity The Community Foundation for Staffordshire in line with charity commission guidelines.

The interest and dividends earned on the invested money is then distributed by the We Love Lichfield Fund as small grants across the district.

The beauty of this model is that it will provide a source of on-going funding that can be used for small grants, and larger grants as the fund grows, for many years to come.

For more information on the group, visit https://welovelichfield.com/.