Ballymena’s festive radio station raises a truly cracking £60,000

Radio Cracker, Ballymena’s charity radio station, completed its annual pre-Christmas four-
Radio Cracker treasurer Maureen Allen with a cheque for £60,000 which was the final total in the station's fundrasing effort this year. Included is chairman Gordon Dawson, station volunteers plus Richard and Mark Montgomery of Montgomery's Restaurant who once again hosted the station. INBT 53-102JCRadio Cracker treasurer Maureen Allen with a cheque for £60,000 which was the final total in the station's fundrasing effort this year. Included is chairman Gordon Dawson, station volunteers plus Richard and Mark Montgomery of Montgomery's Restaurant who once again hosted the station. INBT 53-102JC
Radio Cracker treasurer Maureen Allen with a cheque for £60,000 which was the final total in the station's fundrasing effort this year. Included is chairman Gordon Dawson, station volunteers plus Richard and Mark Montgomery of Montgomery's Restaurant who once again hosted the station. INBT 53-102JC

week broadcasting season on Christmas Eve on a fundraising high.

A packed crowd of supporters and volunteers at a closing ceremony in Montgomery’s restaurant were delighted to hear that a total of £60,000 had been raised.

Chairman Gordon Dawson said the amount was all the more remarkable given the current difficult economic situation and added that it would enable Radio Cracker to fund, in full, all the projects it had adopted this year.

“I am not totally surprised because we have always enjoyed the support of the people and businesses of the greater Ballymena area and that support is obviously continuing,” he said.

“On behalf of Radio Cracker, I thank everyone who has supported us and enabled us, in turn, to demonstrate God’s love to those who cannot help themselves and who know no love. All of this money will go to relieve suffering and improve the health and lives of thousands of poor people in the Third World”.

The remarkable fund-raising effort marks the end of what has been a special year for Radio Cracker. Earlier in 2013, the charity was awarded the prestigious Queens Award for Voluntary Service.

The Award is regarded as the MBE for volunteer groups and is believed by Cracker to be the first to be awarded to any group in the greater Ballymena area.

Gordon publically acknowledged the help he had received from the volunteers and particularly those core workers who worked so hard and dependably and without whom, he said, Radio Cracker ‘could not have survived, let alone prospered’.

Projects being funded this year include - the Christian relief and development organisation, Care for Cambodia; Second Sight which hopes to eradicate reversible blindness in Bihar State in India by 2020; the E3 Initiative helping refugees in South Africa; EMMS International, providing aid for pregant women in Malawi living with HIV; Tearfund work to install rain-collecting tanks and ecological laundries in Honduras; and local youth choir, Raise The Roof’s fundraising to build, in partnership with Fields of Life, a classroom school for vulnerable children in Uganda.

While now off the air, Radio Cracker is planning to return on November 27, 2014.

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