Draperstown retail team cover over six million steps for charities

More than 50 staff from the supermarket, which has been the hub of the local community for almost 10 years now, walked the distance equivalent from Draperstown to New York City.

That’s over 3,000 miles – clocking up 6.2 million steps between them, while also holding bucket collections instore to raise the impressive amount for the charities.

The organisations are very close to the team’s hearts after Friends of the Cancer Centre provided respite for team member Michelle McEldowney’s son two years ago when he was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma aged 19.

Michelle said: “Friends of the Cancer Centre are amazing, the way they looked after Aaron was something else.

“They explained, laughed, comforted, gave us a place to stay so we could be near Aaron, they helped with things inside and out of hospital and we simply couldn’t have gone through that journey without them – they were instrumental to Aaron’s recovery.”

Search Team North West spent seven weeks tirelessly conducting the search for Draperstown woman Helena McElhennon when she went missing at Christmas in 2019.

A regular shopper at Lynch’s EUROSPAR, the team wanted to honour the charity that was such a great support to Helena’s family and locals who helped try to find her during this very difficult period for all involved.

Search Team North West is a community search team, assisting families with searches of missing loved ones.

During the search for Helena they put out regular updates on the search and coordinated the many volunteers who travelled to help in the search efforts.

Danielle Johnston, Area Manager from the Lynch Group said the team and customers have shown huge generosity and community spirit with their latest fundraising.

She said: “Lynch’s isn’t just another shop in the town, it’s a real hub for the local community and implementing initiatives like this are what makes them really special.”

“They have shown real dedication with the early mornings and late nights to clock up the miles to support the charities that are so important to them.

“We’d like to send a big congratulations out to the team and all their friends and family who helped raise £11,600 for their chosen charities. We are so proud of them all.”

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