Carlisle Racecourse will stage its Great Community Race Day on Thursday to raise awareness of six charities which have played a pivotal role in the local community during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Great Community Race Day is the brainchild of Carlisle Racecourse non-executive committee member Bruce Jones and his wife Sue, who founded OEE, an engineering company based in Carlisle, in 2018.
OEE specialises in engineering support, specialist projects and process improvement, mainly within the packaging industry.
OEE engineers work globally and presently have ongoing projects across four continents as well as within the UK.
In March 2020, OEE was forced to stop trading with no clear idea of when work could restart.
Sue and Bruce used the downtime to build new business contacts and format a model for the future.
Throughout the pandemic, the packaging industry has seen a significant surge in demand due to the various lockdowns and the subsequent growth of the ‘stay at home’ market across the world and OEE restarted in August 2020.
Keen to support and contribute towards the local community, Bruce and Sue decided to sponsor a racing fixture and the concept of the Great Community Race Day was born.
Bruce said: “We all celebrate the Cumbrian people’s historical resolve in overcoming life’s challenges, from the previous floods to the current pandemic.
“Unfortunately, the situation over the past 18 months has been unprecedented and directly affected so many, understandably bringing everyone back to the old British ideal that charity begins at home.
“This has left many smaller local charities in a very difficult situation, working on very limited budgets with limited opportunity to recover and build support.”
The team at OEE presented a list of charities which they had personally been involved with and felt inclined to support.
Each race on Thursday’s card will include the name of one of the following charities:
- BEE Unique – Autism ‘Embracing Differences’ https://beeuniquecharity.co.uk/
- Calvert Trust – Challenging disability through outdoor adventure. https://www.calvertlakes.org.uk/
- Carlisle Community Help – Affordable Food Hub https://www.carlislecommunityhelp.co.uk/
- Diff-Ability – Showcasing ability over disability. https://www.diffability.co.uk/
- Every Life Matters – Suicide Prevention. www.every-life-matters.org.uk
- Penny Jones – Animal Hospice https://pennyjonesanimalhospice.mystrikingly.com/
Bruce said: “Through the Great Community Race Day, OEE hope to really raise awareness of these local charities and the fantastic work they do.
“The charities have continued to remain on the front-line of support through these challenging times. This is a reason to celebrate each charity’s continued hard work and spotlight their continued support of the community.
“We trust that raising awareness now will help these charities offer locals that little bit of extra support, possibly making all the difference through offering advice, direction or simply someone to talk to. It may help save a person’s life, offer families an opportunity to put food on the table, save a discarded animal or deliver additional support for those who most need it.
“OEE would like to thank the charities themselves for their efforts in pulling together the organisation and the team at Carlisle Racecourse for their help and support with all the arrangements and planning.”
All donations are split equally and passed in full, directly to the charities and can be made at https://gofund.me/6b870f12.
