Comment: Make the Vale lottery an odds-on success for good causes

Back in November AVDC launched its Vale Lottery, enabling local good causes to raise much-needed cash whilst offering players the chance to win £20,000 each week.

Here we are, two months later, and we have 83 organisations signed up and we’re selling around 1,300 tickets per week!

That puts us on track to generate a total of £38,000 for the Vale’s good causes over the course of a year, and as the number of players grows, so too does that figure.

It’s a fantastic start and I’d like to say a huge thank you to residents taking part. It’s a tough world out there for good causes and it’s also often expensive for them to set up online fundraising initiatives, so the Vale Lottery really is a great way to help these good causes get the funds they need.

To those who are thinking of joining and fancy adopting a New Year’s resolution which will benefit their local community, then why not visit www.valelottery.co.uk and take a look?

It’s one pound a week to play and there’s a range of good causes from which to choose.

If you can’t decide which one to support then you can simply support the Vale Lottery general fund.

It’s all on the website, available on any mobile device or PC, and is easy to use.

I will say, as the cabinet member for transformation, I’m really proud of AVDC for starting this initiative. We’re the first council in the country to launch an online community lottery and now a number of others are interested in doing the same.

There’s no doubt that our council, like others, doesn’t have the money it had in the past, but the appetite to keep serving the Vale and supporting the community is as strong as ever.

Happy New Year everyone!