Inspired by the 2012 Paralympics, Swindon Old Town's Partnership of Churches more than doubled their fundraising target for a Christian Aid project to help people living with disability in Lebanon and the West Bank.Within nine months, three churches - motivated by the knowledge that the EU would match funding by 3:1 - smashed their target of 5,000 raising an incredible 10,356.32. Events ranged from a Ready Steady Cook competition to Open Gardens, car boot sales and the compilation and sale of recipe and poetry books.
One of the coordinators, Margaret Williams of Christ Church said: Every few years the Old Town Partnership of Churches does a fund raising project to help people overseas. We were at the planning stage soon after the Paralympics so a project to help disabled people really caught our interest.
We launched the project at a joint service in February and as the months went by we learnt more about the difficulties faced by disabled people in the region and had some wonderful fundraising events.
Now it is over we have a sense of achievement having done so well and hopefully we have made a difference to disabled people's lives.