The Salvation Army Ayr Community Choir raised almost £3,000 for Ayrshire Cancer Support through their Christmas celebration on Saturday, December 4.

The event, which included guest performances from Matthew and Rachel Hynes and the Govan Salvation Army Brass Ensemble, saw two of Ayrshire Cancer Support’s ambassadors, husband and wife Brian and Yvonne Hendrie, speak about the need to raise awareness of the charity’s free services and to raise funds for their Make It Happen campaign.

This focuses on creating a new cancer support centre in Ayr with special spaces for children and young people throughout Ayrshire.

The final total raised on the night was an impressive £2,804.

Martin Quigley, community fundraising manager at Ayrshire Cancer Support said: “Huge well done and thanks to Ayr Salvation Army, who held a Christmas concert to raise urgently needed funds for our capital fundraising appeal.

“Ayrshire Cancer Support, whilst it has a very large remit and delivers over 23,000 supported appointments through our free patient transport, counselling, and drop-ins in a normal year, we are a very small team. We need to generate £2,500 every day, just to keep our free services running – it would be impossible to help so many people without support from people like Ayr Salvation Army.

“The money raised by Ayr Salvation Army will go towards undertaking major building work at the new centre, which will see a bespoke area for children and young people as well as all the facilities our current Kilmarnock centre hosts – counselling rooms, a drop-in centre, and treatment rooms.”