The editor of the Fife Free Press has described his paper's efforts to help fund the building of a cancer care centre as the most important campaign in its history.
Press readers raised £500,000 towards the first Maggie's Cancer Care Centre in the UK. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown formally opened the care centre this week along with architect Zaha Hadid. The Press published a 24-page souvenir supplement looking back on the five years of fundraising and featured the first pictures of the Kirkcaldy-based building's cutting-edge design.
It also included a roll of honour of readers' fundraising events, a time line of the campaign and profiles of the people who will run the centre. Gordon Brown's wife and patron of Maggie's, Sarah Brown, wrote an article exclusively for the paper.
Editor Allan Crow said: ‘'This was the biggest, and most important, campaign in the history of our paper and we are all thrilled to see the centre officially opened. It is a stunning building and one that everyone in Fife is rightly proud of.''
The Press will continue to raise money to pay for the centre's annual running costs. The supplement's editorial content will be added online at www.fifetoday.co.uk This year the paper organised a fundraising gala dinner and auction attended by Gordon Brown and Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell, and hosted by TV personality Lorraine Kelly, which raised £40,000. A similar event is being planned.
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