Image: Tom Little
Paint Highbury Pink, a cake sale, raffle and tombola in Highbury Park raised more than £3,000 for breast cancer charities on Saturday.
The annual event – part of October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month – was organised by local shop owner Michelle Lovell, 51, who said that the event generated £3180.30 for three breast cancer charities; the highest amount to date in the event’s six-year history.
Ms Lovell, who is a breast cancer survivor herself, said businesses in the area had been keen to help. Many baked cakes for the stand or donated prizes for the raffle and tombola, like Arsenal Football Club, which donated a football signed by their squad for the draw.
She was helped on the day by a team of volunteers dressed from head-to-toe in pink, including her two daughters Katie and Sarah, and said that she thought that Paint Highbury Pink had received so much support because “everybody knows someone who has been affected”.
One of those helping out on the day was Gianna Cinatti, a close friend of Ms Lovell, who decided to take part after her own mother died of the disease. She said the event didn’t just help charities, but was also a “nice way of bringing the community together”.
The money raised from the sale will be divided between the Pink Ladies Foundation, Breakthrough and Breast Cancer Awareness, charities that fund research into the disease and offer support to its sufferers.
