Charity Night in Memory of Paul Wilkins
15th January 2011
January 15th 2011 was a night to celebrate and remember the third anniversary and 25th birthday of a wonderful young man.
Paul Wilkins passed away on his 22nd birthday on 11th January 2008 and not a day goes by when we don’t remember him and the good times that he shared with us during his short stay in this world. So far every year we have held a charity disco in memory of him and have raised money for both Cardiac Risk In the Young (CRY) and The Police Cadets whom Paul supported.
This year was no different but thankfully the weather was much kinder to us! We changed venues to Belvedere Social Club where the staff were very helpful and supportive to our cause and special night. Once again Paul’s younger brother Mitchell put on a fantastic disco that Paul would have been proud of.
We had some fantastic prizes donated for our raffle and would like to thank The FA, Manchester United, Millwall, Charlton, Watford and Darent River Football Clubs. David Lloyd, Crayford Greyhound Stadium, Peacocks, T.K Maxx, Phoenix Theatre for Blood Brother tickets, The Prince of Wales Theatre for Mamma Mia tickets and HSBC again kindly gave £500 to our cause. Many donations were greatly received and came in from as far a field as Canada! Various super raffle prizes were also generously given from friends and family.
A special raffle was held for a one-week holiday in a Turkish apartment, Debbie & Martin kindly donated this, they then decided to auction a further week, which was a great help. Katie Locke very kindly helped again with the invitations and Inspirations in Bexleyheath very kindly donated a centre balloon for our raffle table.
Tickets sold out in record time and people were still turning up to pay on the door. Paul’s dad, Steve Wilkins held the raffle and a very lucky lady won a one-week stay in Turkey for £10!
Luckily the auction for the second week raised an impressive £400, which certainly helped to boost our grand total to a staggering £3600.00!!
We never forgot why we were there though, as midnight drew closer Mitchell played Paul’s songs, everyone joined in a circle on the dance floor and to ‘Nothings Gonna Stop Us Now’ we all remembered Paul, a beautiful son, grandson, brother, cousin and friend who had his whole life ahead of him but who was taken too soon.
Pam Oates