Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
TALKING POLITICS Amazed by work of charity champion Ray
After more than 20 years as an MSP, I have never failed to be amazed by all the good work done by individuals acting on their own to help others.
Ray Mitchell is one of those individuals. More than 20 years ago, when Ray was working in Woolworths in Bellshill, unfortunately now closed, she sold raffle tickets for a UK charity.
Then she realised that none of the proceeds were coming to Scotland. With permission from the store’s management, Ray decided to do her own thing.
She started selling raffle tickets of her own volition, donating the proceeds to local charities for people who needed help. to the local Post Office, from where she has been selling raffle tickets every week for the past 10 years.
In more than two decades Ray has raised many thousands of pounds, every penny of which goes to good causes.
Ray’s work got recognition from the Queen years ago. She became a Member of the British Empire (MBE) for her work for charity. Now retired, to this day Ray still sells thousands of pounds’ worth of raffle tickets for good causes every year.
Every Christmas for the past few years, Ray has donated £1000 worth of toys to the children’s cancer ward at the old Yorkhill Hospital and latterly to the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow, where the of toys to the Salvation Army every Christmas, for needy children.
This year she decided to do something different and made the three cancer charities based in Airdrie the focus of her charitable donations.
She donated £500 to the Beatson Centre at Monklands Hospital, as well as £500 each to the Maggie’s Centre at Monklands and St Andrews Hospice.
All three of these brilliant organisations provide first- class services to cancer patients from throughout Lanarkshire. They all need whatever additional funding they can get, so Ray’s £1500 donation has given each of them a massive boost.
It is just a pity we don’t have a hundred