Weekender: Raising the roof – and a ton of money too

Stars of music, TV and reality fame have gathered to support the Matt Haycox Foundation in Leeds at a glamorous gala, hosted in Bibi’s restaurant.

With music from Westlife’s Brian McFadden, supported by TOWIE’s James ‘Arg’ Argent’s band, a celebrity-packed dance-floor sung along to their favourite hits, whilst raising over £40,000 for this cause.

Bubbly Gogglebox star Amy Tapper joined Brian on the microphone and belted out a number, whilst her Celebs Go Dating co-star Callum Izzard sat next to her.

Credit: Vantagenews.com

And Love Island’s Georgia Steel and Hayley Hughes were amongst the group of popular Instagram influencers who cheered her on too.

The foundation was born when 38-year-old businessman Haycox was at a football match in 2016 – and he met a family trying to support their nine-year-old son Alfie.

So inspired by the family’s plight and crowd-funding efforts to help with his cerebral palsy, Haycox discovered that his mum Anne-Marie was trying to raise £50,000 – and pledged to match whatever the family raised by the end of that year.

Six months later Alfie had an operation and his life changed forever. Touched by his astonishing bravery, it was from that moment onwards that Haycox pledged to help other children like him as much as he could.

Largely thanks to auction prizes such as a photograph on OK! Magazine’s party pages, and a tour of ITV’s This Morning studio – the star-studded event was an overwhelming success.

Haycox said: “It’s all down to our amazing supporters and friends that I’m able to propel this charity from strength to strength. Without the support of all the people that attended the night this week – there’s no way we could help the children that we’ve been able to so far.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled by the amount of guests who came along to lend their backing, and pledge to keep doing so for years to come.”