Bond Wolfe Auctions’ staff celebrate successful second year with £6,000 in charity donations

Bond Wolfe Auctions is celebrating completing its second year in business by making charity donation of £6,000 to the Bond Wolfe Charitable Trust to distribute to well deserving West Midlands charities.

Despite concerns over Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic, the Birmingham-based auction business finished its second year 36% up, offering 1,135 lots, raising £111.3 million in sales (2019 – £81.4 million) with an average success rate of 94%.

Chief executive Gurpreet Bassi said: “Despite the business challenges posed by the pandemic, the team at Bond Wolfe Auctions has achieved remarkable successes by pulling together and facing the issues head on.

“We want to share some of our success at Christmas with those less fortunate and so we asked our staff to nominate three charities that would receive £2,000 each.”

Via the Bond Wolfe Charitable Trust, they have made donations to MS Society – Birmingham, Molly Olly’s Wishes and Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

Charitable trust manager Lisa Worrall said: “We would like to thank the staff at Bond Wolfe Auctions for nominating these three very worthwhile charities. During these difficult times, it is lovely to feel we can somehow still make a difference.”

Run by a small group of volunteers, MS Birmingham (www. mssociety.org.uk) provides a range of services to all individuals with MS in the Birmingham region including free access to exercise and therapeutic classes.

Alongside these classes, they offer weekly social meet-ups and activity lunches, offer grants to be used for home modifications, aids and equipment not provided by the statutory services, transport and holidays and run a helpline where individuals can receive emotional support and advice.

Due to the pandemic, they have had to cancel all face to face services for safety reasons. Volunteers and service providers of the group have looked at ways to continue to reach out and keep in touch with the individuals that enjoy and rely on their services and are currently running virtual classes and social meet-ups.

Their ultimate goal is to find a cure, but until then, they working to make sure no one has to face MS alone. Everything they do is guided by people with MS.

Vidal Lee, MS Society Birmingham finance volunteer, said: “I would like to extend a big thank you to Bond Wolfe Auctions for putting us forward to the Bond Wolfe Charitable Trust for this donation. It is very much appreciated in these difficult times.”

Molly Olly’s Wishes (www.mollyolly.co.uk) was founded in 2011 by Rachel and Tim Ollerenshaw. Their daughter Molly Ollerenshaw was diagnosed, aged 3, with a Wilms tumour and despite a long and brave five year fight, died in 2011.

They spent a large part of those years in and out of hospital and soon realised that many of the patients they met did not have the emotional or financial support that they had for Molly and her siblings. Molly wanted to help these children and so Molly Olly’s Wishes was born.

Molly Olly’s Wishes supports children with life threatening or life limiting illnesses and their families to help with their emotional wellbeing. The charity grants individual wishes and donates therapeutic toys and books to both children directly and to hospitals throughout the UK.

Rachel Ollerenshaw said: “The team at Molly Olly’s Wishes are extremely grateful to Bond Wolfe for their donation. It has been a challenging year for everyone in particular for the children and families that our charity support and this donation will help us to make the dark days brighter for them”.

Birmingham Children’s Hospital (www. bch.org.uk) is a leading UK specialist paediatric centre, offering expert care to over 90,000 children and young people from across the country every year.

Delivering some of the most advanced treatments, complex surgical procedures and cutting edge research and development, the hospital treats one in five children from Birmingham and one in eight from the wider West Midlands.

Every patient and family at Birmingham Children’s Hospital will have been touched by the hospital’s charity in some way. As a result, it continually strives to do more for the sick kids in its care, whether that’s a newly refurbished playroom or ward, a state-of-the-art piece of equipment or even a toy at Christmas.

To find out more about Bond Wolfe Charitable Trust and our other charity donations please click here or to find out more about Bond Wolfe Auctions please click here.