Pauline and John are this year’s lucky car raffle winners!

A couple who have supported St Catherine’s Hospice for years as lottery members, by donating to our charity shops, fundraising, and visiting The Mill café are the lucky winners of this year’s car raffle!

Pauline Billington filled out a number of raffle tickets for her family after receiving them in the post with her lottery member pack, and her husband John’s ticket was drawn at St George’s Shopping Centre in Preston earlier this month.

The couple, who run their farm in Whitestake, Preston, plan to share the brand new MINI.

Pauline said: “We never expected to win; we entered to support the hospice. We do what we can to give back to the charity as we think it’s such an important place and everyone does a fantastic job. It’s a big task for the charity to raise £3.5million every year, so we just want to do our bit to help.

“We’ve donated to the shops and I’ve never felt so moved by a charity – the fundraising team are so grateful for our support and it makes us feel really valued.

“We also bring the grandchildren to St Catherine’s Park and we visit The Mill quite often – it’s the best cup of coffee around; it really is a good brew! I actually bought some car raffle tickets from The Mill too. We’re very proud to support St Catherine’s.”

The mum-of-four and grandma-of-four added: “I really couldn’t believe it when we got the call to say we’d won the MINI. I was just gobsmacked – I honestly thought it was a wind up! We’re so excited about it – we love the car. I’d say to anyone to give things like this a go because you never know, it could be you who wins next year!”

Head of community engagement at St Catherine’s Hospice, Emma Jacovelli, said: “Congratulations to Pauline and John on their amazing win! It’s great to see them so excited and it’s wonderful to hear of their fantastic support of St Catherine’s over the years.

“I’d like to say a special ‘thank you’ to Bowker in Preston and St George’s Shopping Centre in Preston for their continued support of our car raffle. The raffle raises a brilliant amount of money for St Catherine’s each year, helping us to continue offering our specialist palliative and end-of-life care to local people affected by life-shortening illnesses, here at the hospice and in their own homes.”

If you would like to find out more about becoming a St Catherine’s lottery member, which costs just £1 a week and has a weekly jackpot of £2,000, please click here.

Pictured are car raffle winners John and Pauline Billington with Nathan Westgate and Simon Collinson from Bowker Preston, Katya Berroyer and Kevin Wilcock from St George’s Shopping Centre, and Emma Jacovelli, head of community engagement at St Catherine’s Hospice 

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