Plymouth based boat builder, Princess Yachts have shown their support of St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth, a local hospice, in many ways over the years but in sponsoring their Midnight Walk this year the charity are simply tickled pink!
Princess decided to mark the start of the Midnight Walk’s promotional activity by displaying a Princess V39 in Plymouth city centre finished in the charity’s event colours – bright pink! The special edition model will be used as the centre piece for St Luke’s awareness drive for the walk when she is displayed in City Centre Plaza Plymouth on Saturday 23rd March.
Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, St Luke’s Hospice provides specialist palliative medical and nursing care to thousands of terminally ill patients from across Plymouth, South West Devon and East Cornwall and has been hosting the Midnight Walk for six years.
In 2012 the popular walk saw over 2,000 women take part, raising a phenomenal £190,000. These funds raised provided 406 days of care for the in-patient unit at St Luke’s Hospice making a huge difference to the patients and their families. This year St Luke’s hopes that over 4,000 women will take part in the walk, which takes place on 27th July, for what will be one of Plymouth’s biggest events.
Princess Yachts International have long supported the charity and Chris Gates, Managing Director commented “We were delighted to be asked to sponsor the St Luke’s Midnight Walk and show our appreciation for the incredible work the hospice does within our community. The care offered at St. Luke's is truly remarkable and has proved invaluable for a number of our employees and their families over the years so it is particularly important to us that we help support its future.” He continued “The walk itself is always a fun event so using a ‘Pink Princess’ yacht as a publicity stunt to help create awareness seemed appropriate – you never know, we might actually be creating a whole new sales opportunity for ourselves!”
The V39 won't remain pink however, it was created using the latest vinyl wrap technology thanks to the kind and generous support of 'Yacht Wrap' who specialize in transforming boats into, often quite literally, works of art. Princess would also like to thanks Denholm Industrial Services for their kind support in the process too.
Enthusiasm for the Midnight Walk has already gone right through the company and a team of dedicated Princess ladies who will be taking part on the day are busy building up their sponsors.
Amie Bull, Events Fundraiser for St Luke's Hospice, is delighted with the energy that is already being generated. "It is fantastic that Princess is supporting the event," she enthused. "Seeing the pink boat for the first time yesterday was fantastic and we're really looking forward to Saturday now. There is no question it will create a real buzz and get people interested in taking part – we're going to paint the town pink, I can't wait!"
