Mayor's donation to Peterborough children's charity hit by break in 'instrumental' in helping it get back on its feet

A Peterborough children’s charity which was left devastated by a break in earlier this year has said a donation from the former city Mayor was instrumental to helping it get back open.

Little Miracles – the charity which supports children with disabilities and life limiting conditions – had computers stolen and smashed, windows broken and other damage caused in the break in, which happened in March.

Since then, the Westwood based charity has been overwhelmed with support, which included a £1,000 donation from cllr Dr Alan Dowson, who was Mayor of Peterborough in 2022/23.

Cllr Dowson made the donation from the £26,000 Mayor’s Charity fund, which has been used to support a range of good causes across the city during his time as first citizen.

This week, he visited the centre, along with his Mayoress, cllr Dr Shabina Qayyum, Alderman Bella Saltmarsh, who was deputy Mayoress last year and is the current Mayoress, and Susan Magill, from the Mayor’s Charity Committee.

The group met with Michelle King, founder of the charity, who spoke of the importance of the money – and the support the charity had been given after the break in.

She said: “We are so grateful for support of the Mayor’s team – we received the money a couple of months ago now, just after the break in, it has been instrumental in getting us back on our feet, getting us back open and making sure the children have an uninterrupted service.”

The charity supported more than 30,000 people, including children and their families, last year, with thousands of people going to the Westwood site every year.

Michelle said the support the charity had received had been overwhelming. She said: “The community is amazing. We wouldn’t exist without the people of Peterborough. the people of Peterborough are the people who keep us going. We are so grateful for all the support we have.”

Cllr Dowson, who along with supporting Little Miracles has also donated money to a range of community projects including food banks, school breakfast clubs and the New Ark centre, said: “It (Little Miracles) needs help, and financial help, we can do that through the Mayor’s Charity, we think it is one of the organisations which is needed, desperately, on estates like at Westwood, where children and their parents can be helped.

"We are limited – rather than give a large amount to one or two organisations, we raised the money, about £26,000, and distributed it to around 14 organisations, and for Little Miracles, we felt that £1,000 was warranted. We would have liked to have given more but we limited."

Ms Magill, who has worked with cllr Dowson on his fundraising over the year, said she was proud of the work he had done during his year of the first citizen.

Police are still appealing for witnesses or anyone with information about the break in to contact officers, either using the webchat service, or by calling 101.