Bury St Edmunds fashion store owner, Anna Park, of ANNA, in Abbeygate street, raises over £23k for cancer charity, Mind Over Cancer

A fashion store owner has raised over £20k for a cancer charity

Anna Park, who runs the ANNA chain of stores, including one in Bury St Edmunds, pledged to raise £60k on her 60th birthday in July, for Mind Over Cancer.

Mind Over Cancer helps young people and their support networks after a cancer diagnosis.

As part of that pledge, Mrs Park – who owns five ANNA stores in East Anglia and London, organised a fashion show and raffle.

Her husband Richard – a radio executive and former judge on the popular BBC TV show called Fame Academy - oversaw an auction in front of over 100 guests - and a total of £23, 225 was raised on the night.

The occasion was hosted by Thursford Garden Pavillion who donated the venue, food and nibbles for free.

Anna – who along with her husband is a patron of Mind Over Cancer – said: “To raise £23k for a charity is beyond what we had hoped for. On top of that, I have a JustGiving page, as I asked people to donate to the charity rather than give me a brithday present when I turned 60 in July.

“So with the money we raised at the fashion show and with the JustGiving page, it means we are already up to around £30k of my overall £60k pledge and I’m so pleased.

In terms of future plans, Anna continued: “I’d like to do another fashion show on a bigger scale and keep raising money. As patrons, my husband and I are totally committed to the charity.”

Susie Shaw is the founder and Chief Executive of Mind Over Cancer – an organisation that will be celebrating their fourth birthday next month.

Susie said: “I’m completely overwhelmed. When you are a small charity – this amount of money really is life changing in terms of the work that we can do to support young people and their families.

“This funds will go towards children, young people and their families to support anyone who has had a cancer diagnosis.

In relation to the ongoing collaboration, Susie said: “This is the start of a major adventure together with ANNA and ourselves.”

Susie added: “We are so grateful to Anna, her team and Richard, Thursford Pavillion, all those who donated raffle prizes and everyone who came along to this event.”

Charlie Cushing, general manager of Thursford Pavillion, said: “It’s an amazing charity, they are new and we wanted to do as much as we could by donating the venue, promoting the event and providing food and drinks.

“I recently did a sky dive this week with my colleagues Mel and David - and we have raised over £1472.50 for Mind Over Cancer so far.”

All models in the fashion show were staff members who work for ANNA, including Anna herself.