A CHARITY champion who has raised more than £100,000 for good causes in a decade has set up a group to help the elderly, lonely and forgotten.

Wantage shop manager Ray Collins hopes creating the formal organisation will help him raise more money each year.

The 46-year-old of Springfield Road has recruited eight friends to join him as trustees of the Ray Collins Charitable Trust.

They are now planning to stage one of the biggest fundraising events Wantage has ever seen by merging two major events in the town's calendar – Wantage Carnival and Wantage Standing up to Cancer sponsored run and walk – on Sunday, July 10.

The event will also honour two of Mr Collins' finest fundraisers who both lost their battle with cancer in the past year: 17-year-old Maisie Norton from Grove, and Mr Collins' own uncle Malcolm Collins.

The new charity will also organise makeovers for local community facilities as Mr Collins has done for years and run Mr Collins' Christmas and Easter meals for the lonely.

Mr Collins, who manages Peter Ledbury electricals shop in Grove Street, Wantage, said: "We want everything we do to be fun, entertaining and to engage all ages to get local people helping local people; it doesn't get any better than that.

"The purpose of setting up the trust is really just to help me spread the workload.

"In the last few years the fundraising has got bigger and bigger and is now as time-consuming as a full-time job – and I already have one of those."

Mr Collins, who was awarded a British Citizen Awards for his fundraising in January this year, will be joined by trustees Phil Tynan (vice chairman), Sarah Tynan, (secretary), Kate McCormack (treasurer), April Moore (deputy secretary), Laura Beale, Tracy Wilson, Sarah Kerr and Matthew Donaldson.

All of them will carry out their roles as unpaid volunteers.

Mr Collins has registered the new group as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation with the Charity Commission and is now just waiting to receive a registration number sometime this month.

In the meantime the soon-to-be trustees will continue organising upcoming events like the sponsored Mr Collin's annual Moonlight Walk on April 9.

This year the trust will spend a lot of time raising funds for Wantage 12-year-old Freya Deacon, who was partially paralysed in a car accident on a family holiday and is now receiving therapy to help her regain control over her body.

Trustees will also be raising money for Wantage Community First Responders – volunteer paramedics for the ambulance service – Oxford Centre for Enablement, Caring Cancer Foundation and Cancer Research UK.

Being an official charity will mean people's donations are eligible for the Government's gift aid tax scheme which will allow Mr Collins to add another 20 per cent to what it raises.

Mr Collins added: "We want to continue to build on the work I have done over the years and grow this charity into an amazing cause to massively benefit those most in need in our community - the elderly, the lonely, the forgotten, and whoever we feel needs our support.

"We want this to be a charity that the people of Wantage can turn to in their hour of need and rely on."