Support Lakeside Village in their bid to sponsor a guide dog pup in 2021

Doncaster’s Lakeside Village Shopping Outlet is ready to raise vital funds for its charity of the year, Guide Dogs, despite the majority of the centre being currently closed.
Di Rodgers, centre manager said: “We are thrilled to be supporting Guide Dogs as our chosen charity for 2021. Ordinarily we’d have our charity onsite for a formal launch but obviously under the current restrictions we’re not able to do that.
“We know that charities have been hugely impacted by the inability to raise money using their traditional routes and we wanted to still be able to support them without the centre being fully open.
“Our customers are a very generous bunch and normally fill up the tins at the cash registers and donate to buckets on site at events, as this can’t happen right now, we’ve set up a justgiving page to encourage people to help us to get the fundraising started.”
Guide Dogs, started in 1931 and has helped more than 29,000 people to achieve life-changing independence. It is a cause which helps people with sight loss live the life they choose.
Di added: “We’ve set ourselves the target of trying to raise £5,000 by the end of the year to cover the cost of sponsoring a pup that will go on to assist someone with sight loss.
“There are nearly two million people living with sight loss in the UK and so everybody that we can help is a step in the right direction. We’re thoroughly looking forward to raising much-needed funds for Guide Dogs and know that our kindhearted customers will love to join us on our mission to help the cause.”
The shopping outlet has a long running relationship with Doncaster Guide Dog Group and has over the years sponsored and named some six dogs, raising £5,000 for each.  The latest, Cookie, was named by a Lakeside customer following a competition.
Di added: “This is the first time we’ve had Guide Dogs as our charity of the year. We know that our customers really do support this cause as they have helped us to raise £30,000 to name six puppies over the years. Previous dogs have been called Laker, Parker, Buddy, Treacle and Willow.
“If you want to donate to our target or have any ideas of fun fundraising activities we could hold during lockdown please do either sponsor via Just Giving or drop us a line at [email protected]