British Red Cross DEC Ukraine Appeal benefitted to the tune of £2,550 after an amazing evening on Thursday, March 24 down at The Cresselly Arms Public House - known by most as ‘The Quay’.

Yvette and Russell Weblin-Grimsley felt they just had to do something to raise some funds for the poor souls of Ukraine. Their friends, local band Shanty Le Hara were approached and kindly agreed to play for the evening.

Steve and Teresa Adams, landlord and landlady of the Quay, agreed to provide the venue and plans were underway.

There was a huge turnout with donations on the night being dropped into old fashioned sweet jars on the bar which had all had special crocheted ‘covers’ on them in the blue and yellow colours of the Ukraine flag.

Three beautiful professionally made Welsh quilts were given as Raffle prizes by Yvette’s neighbour and friend Joan Scourfield.

Yvette said: “So many people turned up on the actual evening it was heartwarming. Shanty Le Hara did us all proud and the atmosphere was amazing. It was a Thursday night outside and most definitely a Saturday night knees-up inside!”

“We all realised the seriousness of the situation that we were raising money for,” added Yvette, “but with so many negative things in all our lives recently with the pandemic etc., it was just so lovely to come together as a community to savour how lucky we are and to help others less fortunate than ourselves at the same time. We all felt very blessed.”

From those who could not make it on the evening, generous donations were received.

A total of £400 was made on the raffle and £2,150.00 in donations - an amazing sum by anyone’s reckoning!

Yvette and Russell would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who gave and supported this very worthy cause, as well, of course, as thanking Shanty Le Hara and Steve and Teresa for making this possible.

• As we were going to press, a further £160 had been pledged in donations, which will bring the total raised to £2,710. What a fabulous amount!