£4,500 boost for Dementia Support charity
A BUSINESS group has raised £4,521 in support of the charity Dementia Support.
On Wednesday, the Portsmouth Business Exchange held an event at the Village Hotel in Northarbour to commemorate the good work that the company has achieved during the pandemic.
Portsmouth Business Exchange (PBE) is a not-for-profit organisation and networking group which has been running for over 15 years, raising money for local charities and helping businesses to grow.
Theeventsawguest speakers from Checkatrade founder Kevin Byrne and Charlotte Carter,
founder of the luxury and sustainable Carter Bags.
Penny Plimmer became chairperson of the PBE at the beginning of the pandemic and met Dianne Gill, fundraising manager at Dementia Support in Tangmere, at the end of 2019 and PBE has been working with the charity for the last 18 months.
She said: ‘We like to choose a local charity as national ones tend to get more help and support. Historically PBE has always supported a charity, changing each year, this year we felt we wanted to support Dementia Support.’
PBE have previously supported other local charities such as the Rainbow Centre in
Fareham and Music Fusion
in Havant, both youth centred charities.
Long-time member of the PBE, Phil Mundy, said: ‘Penny’s taken the reins of PBE over the Covid period, and kept it going online in a way that not many people could have done.’
‘The event’s been brilliant, everybody’s obviously desperate to talk to each other. Charities have always been dead centre of everything we do, doing business is
secondary and doing good comes first,’ he added.
Founded by a group of local business owners, Portsmouth Business Exchange has continued to expand and over the pandemic, offering virtual socials as well as an online business library for its members.
Luke Knight, manager at Dementia Support, attended the event and said: ‘They’ve been great over the pandemic, they ran online virtual socials and when they could, they’ve come from Portsmouth over to Chichester to spend time at the charity to see what we do.’ Visit https://www. portsmouthbusiness
exchange.co.uk/.