Charity Latest: Three Peaks success for Grant Thornton; Lloyds Banking Group walk on; and more

A TEAM of accountants from Grant Thornton in Sheffield swapped the office for the outdoors as they took on the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge to raise money for the firm’s charity partner Cancer Research UK.

The 24 mile, 2000ft climb took 11 hours in total with the team raising £1,375 for the charity so far.

The Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge takes in the peaks of Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough.

Partner Paul Houghton said: “Thanks to the team of volunteers and their huge effort on the day we now have a sizable donation to give to our 2011 charity partner.”

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LLOYDS Banking Group has been chosen as the banking partner of The Children’s Hospital Charity which supports the work of The Children’s Hospital in Sheffield.

Six of the Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets team in Sheffield also took part in a 35-mile fundraising walk from their Sheffield office to their Leeds office, raising £5,000 for The Children’s Hospital Charity.

Tom Rumboll, business development director, said: “We are delighted to able to support a name synonymous with care, quality and innovation.”

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YORK-based Park Leisure, which operates five star Holiday Parks throughout the UK, has thrown its full support behind the Help for Heroes charity.

Last October two of Park Leisure’s Directors – Miles Dewhurst and Gary Molloy – raised  £20,000 for the charity through a bike ride from their Amble Links Holiday Park to Blackpool.

This year they embarked on the ‘Tour de Park Leisure’, with the aim of bring the total to £50,000 to aid Help for Heroes.

The ride involved cycling the 550 miles between the company’s most northern holiday park in Amble, Northumberland to its most southern park, Par Sands on the south coast of Cornwall.

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HUDDERSFIELD manufacturer Ellis Furniture is pledging £30,000 during the next three years to continue its funding of work carried out by Cancer Research UK Leeds Centre.

This would take the total amount donated over the years by generations of the Ellis family to more than £100,000.

The new commitment is being used to help PhD student Anastasia Filia research melanoma, bowel and testicular cancers in order to identify new ways to diagnose and treat the disease.

She is based in Professor Tim Bishop’s genetic epidemiology research programme at the University of Leeds and her specific research objective is to analyse melanoma tumours and develop a new technique to extract DNA for genetic testing.

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MARK Burns, managing partner of Leeds law firm Clarion, recently competed in the Great North Swim as part of his pledge to complete ten major races by the end of the year.

After his one mile swim in Lake Windemere, he headed back to Yorkshire the next day to participate in the Leeds 10k.

His ‘decathlon’ is in aid of his three chosen charities, The Spinal Injury Project of the UK Stem Cell Foundation (UKSCF), the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (Leeds Teaching Hospitals Charity Foundation) and Martin House Hospice for Children and Young People.

He is now almost half way through the events having completed the Ashbourne duathlon, the 10k Ilkley Trail Race, the Great North Swim and Jane Tomlinson’s Leeds 10K.

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THE Leeds office of DLA Piper was paid a visit by Christine Hamilton-Stewart, vice president of Marie Curie Cancer Care and patron of the Marie Curie Hospice Bradford, in recognition of its efforts to raise more than £32,000 for the charity.

Staff at DLA Piper voted to support the Marie Curie Hospice in Bradford during 2010. For many, this was in memory of Bob Allerton, husband of Kirstie Allerton, an associate in the Leeds office, who passed away in 2009 aged 33 after battling cancer.

Throughout the year, DLA Piper staff and family members took part in a variety of events including the Leeds Half Marathon, Corporate Challenge Relay and children’s fun runs, the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge and the DLA Piper/Hatch Mansfield wine tasting evening.