THE Holsworthy and District Lions ‘fun day’ for the disabled has received a huge boost from a local charity — and the club would like to publicly express their thanks.

Holsworthy and District Lions’ fun day for kids and adults with disabilities takes place on the Sunday following the carnival every year. This year was no exception and hundreds of guests from all over Devon, Cornwall and Somerset descended on Holsworthy for a day of fairground rides, food and drink and fun.

The idea of fun day is that everything on the day is free to the guests and their carers and, as such, it is not a cheap event to organise.

With this in mind, Holsworthy and District Lions were enormously grateful to receive a donation of £2,500 from the Devon Community Foundation towards the cost of this year’s event and future events.

Devon Community Foundation is ‘Devon’s local charity for local people’ and the scale of its charitable activities is outstanding. It has donated more than £10.6-million in grants to more than 3,600 projects across Devon, Plymouth and Torbay.

It supports hundreds of voluntary and community groups with the aim of helping local people, rebuilding communities, and making a real difference to the lives of vulnerable people in our area.

Former club president Ray Fursdon said that he was overwhelmed by the generosity of the Devon Community Foundation and said that it will make a huge difference to the Lions club in their continued effort to make the fun day the success it has always been.

The money will be ring-fenced and only used to fund the fun day, but this will, of course, free up other funds for other good works in Holsworthy and the surrounding areas.

Current club president David Smith echoed that gratitude and also expressed his sincere thanks to all the other local Lions clubs, organisations, groups, and companies who donated their time, skills and produce to this year’s event. The future of the fun day looks bright and the club said they are looking forward to welcoming back all the guests, carers and volunteers in November 2017.