The 2023 Swansway Gingerbread Enterprise challenge has raised an impressive £6,365 to support homeless families in the Stoke area.

The money raised is enough to provide ten days’ full support to the homeless families across the Stoke-based charity Gingerbread Centre’s two accommodation sites.

This year’s challenge saw 17 teams use their £50 seed payments to pursue various entrepreneurial ventures to great success. This year’s efforts brought the total raised across the three years of the challenge to £22,121.

The competition took place over nine weeks, with Swansway’s own head office marketing team coming out on top, raising an impressive £1,220 through a host of bake sales and ‘dress down’ days.

A presentation event was held at the Gingerbread Centre to celebrate each team’s efforts, with certificates being presented to each team and the winners and runners up announced for the five categories each receiving an engraved trophy.

Swansway Motor Group themselves secured first place in the Large Company category, with the business raising £1,649.

Chris Belyavin, Gingerbread Centre fundraiser, commented: “It was brilliant to see 17 teams get involved in this year’s challenge, the most participants we’ve had to date. Hopefully we can once again build upon this next year and continue the great success the Swansway Gingerbread Enterprise Challenge has brought so far. Seeing the wacky, innovative, and incredibly creative ideas teams come up with is always entertaining.”

Swansway Motor group director David Smyth, added: “We were delighted to once again to sponsor and participate in the Swansway Gingerbread Enterprise Challenge. Seeing an increase in teams this year, particularly young people in the local area was very pleasing, with every team showing inventiveness, initiative, and entrepreneurial spirit. My congratulations go to all participants for their efforts raising £6,365 for the Gingerbread Centre.”

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