YOU HAVE DONE IT!After just ten months of fundraising our wonderful readers have managed to raise more than £100,000 to help build a vital cancer education and information centre.

YOU HAVE DONE IT!

After just ten months of fundraising our wonderful readers have managed to raise more than £100,000 to help build a vital cancer education and information centre.

The first sods of earth are hopefully due to be cut at Ipswich Hospital later this month making way for a fantastic new service for the whole community.

The Evening Star linked up with Cancer Campaign in Suffolk (CCIS) last April to launch the Raise the Roof project and raise the final £100,000 needed to build the centre.

It is the first major project for CCIS who set about raising the £300,000 needed in 1998.

But now the majority of the money has been raised and the charity is well on its way to seeing their dream finally become a reality.

Gina Cooper is fundraising manager and secretary for CCIS and has certainly been kept busy by the campaign.

She said: "It feels really good to know we have come this far.

"This is just the start and we are going to carry on and raise awareness, hopefully make a name for cancer in Suffolk and go on fighting this disease."

Jonathan Ripman is chairman of the charity. He said: "We are thrilled to have collected £305,000 and special thanks go to the readers of the Evening Star who have enabled us to commence this project earlier than scheduled."

Evening Star Editor Nigel Pickover said: "This has been a fantastic campaign and is a huge amount to raise in such a short time.

"We applaud the people of Suffolk who have thrown themselves into fundraising for this vital centre which can help fight cancer, as well as providing comfort and information for sufferers and their families."

It has been events galore in the last ten months with people raising money in so many different ways.

Casserole parties, head shaves, golf days, sponsored walks, cycle rides, abseils and bowling events were just some of the ways in which people threw themselves into raising money for the centre.

Some cheeky traders in Cliff Lane, Ipswich even decided to show what they were really made of and bared almost all in a special charity calendar.

Huge amounts of money have been raised at some events and around £8,000 was raised when a group of people did a sponsored walk from Mendlesham to Portman Road in Ipswich.

The walk was set up Graham Lockwood, founder member of Mendlesham Action Support Team (MAST) who is a cancer sufferer who has raised tens of thousands for cancer charities.

He was unable to do the walk himself but a team of his supporters were ready to hit the road to raise the money.

The cancer education and information centre will be there to help the whole community.

Books, leaflets and the internet will be available to help patients digest information about their condition and advice for the future which they may not have been able to take in while speaking to their consultant.

Friends and relatives can also use the centre to find out about their loved ones condition.

Prevention information will also be on hand as well as how to spot those vital early signs so that cancer can be caught and treated.

Private rooms will also be built so that families can speak to consultants with more privacy than is usually available in a busy hospital.

WEBLINK: www.cancercampaigninsuffolk.co.uk