Paul Rodgers & Deborah Bonham Raise $180,000 for Animal Charities
Paul Rodgers and Deborah Bonham ~ photo courtesy of paulrodgers.com
Paul Rodgers and Deborah Bonham’s Annual Charity Concert is in its third year and to date has raised $180,000 for Animal Charities. 2013’s concert raised an all-time high $83,160 that will be distributed to Willows Animal Sanctuary in Aberdeen, Scotland, Mount Noddy Animal Centre & The Cat and Rabbit Rescue Centre both near Chichester, England. Rodgers shared, “Each year this event grows and this year was another astounding success. Our fans and friends come through every time. Now Willows can breathe a sigh of relief, as this funding will see them through July. Thanks to everyone from the fans, musicians, volunteers to all of the artists and musicians who donated items. The power of people coming together is an amazing positive force.”
On March 30th, Paul Rodgers and Deborah Bonham and her band ~ along with special guests ~ returned to The Venue in Chichester to raise the roof one more time for animal charities. The main charity, Willows Animal Sanctuary in Aberdeen, Scotland, takes in a massive number and variety of welfare cases from cats to pigs to horses, most of whom will live out their remaining days at the Sanctuary. Currently, they home 300 animals.
A 4 day old tabby kitten rescued by Willows Animal Sanctuary
Paul Rodgers and his wife Cynthia are Patrons of Willows, who shared on receipt of the donation, “We are absolutely over the moon to have such wonderful, lovely talented people supporting Willows Animal Sanctuary! It means so much to have dedicated Patrons Paul Rodgers and Cynthia Kereluk Rodgers who are such kind hearted and beautiful individuals that care so much about animal welfare. Our thanks go to all that helped with the fantastic concert, we know it took a lot of organizing and many dedicated volunteers. Deborah Bonham and Peter Bullick are also amazing, thank you both so much for all the time and energy you have put in to this concert. Everyone at Willows thanks you all from the bottom of our hearts.”
Deborah Bonham and her husband, guitarist Pete Bullick, have adopted both of her dogs from Mount Noddy, which specializes in dogs and cats. Cynthia Kereluk Rodgers and Deborah visited the Cat & Rabbit Rescue Centre near Chichester and were impressed with the care and handling of their two hundred cats! So a donation will be made to them as well. Rock memorabilia were the hot items in the live auction, with two autographed Led Zeppelin posters bringing in $770 and $1309. The highest grossing auction item was a Bad Company Autographed Guitar including tickets to a concert this summer in the US, bringing in $1694.
The biggest surprise of the evening was when Elaine and Chris Fairfax from Animal Friends Insurance handed over checks to the tune of $23,100 to be divided equally amongst the three charities. Deborah Bonham performed some songs from her new CD Spirit (limited edition pre-release CD Digipak out now and available on tour ahead of the September CD, vinyl and digital release) during her 1 hour set. To the fans’ delight, Rodgers played a 90 minute set of songs from just his Free catalog, some songs he had not performed in 40 years. This was Paul Rodgers’ only UK concert in 2013.