£15k raised at Legacy Sports Dinner!

Four hundred people attended the second annual Sam White Legacy gala dinner on Saturday night and helped to raise £15,000!

Sporting celebrities joined paying guests at the black-tie event, which featured an auction that raised £10,000 in memory of Sam that will go to the Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre in Nottingham.

Lots included a signed Manchester United football shirt, wine tasting, a seven-day Eurocamp holiday, an England football shirt signed by manager Roy Hodgson and legacy fund T-shirts signed by both squads from the recent Nottingham Forest away match at Brighton and Hove Albion.

There was also a silent auction and a raffle that included an entry on the night from Nottingham Forest’s Chris Cohen of four match tickets.

The sportsmen and women included Cohen, Brighton centre back Lewis Dunk, who is Sam’s cousin, former Olympic swimmers Sophie Allen and Joe Roebuck, Paralympic swimmer Charlotte Henshaw, gold medallist youth Olympic showjumper Jake Saywell, and boxers Amir Unsworth and Adam Kettleborough.

Former Newark Academy pupil Sam died from an infection in 2013 aged 16 after battling a brain tumour for 3½ years. A film about his life, his illness, and the reflections and hopes of his mother, Mrs Pam White, was screened.

The event, compered by BBC East Midlands’ Quentin Rayner, took place at the Cedric Ford Pavilion, Newark Showground, and was followed by a disco.

It was organised by Sam’s parents, Mike and Pam White, but had been keen sportsman Sam’s idea.

Sam was a tireless campaigner for research and funding for children’s cancer treatments.

He was an Olympic torchbearer on its 2012 national tour and spoke on television and to the Belgian Parliament — a country where he underwent pioneering treatment.

Speaking afterwards, Pam White said: “Everyone embraced the reason for being there but also had fun. We were delighted with the way that it went.

“None of the sportsmen or women wanted a fee and every one of them asked if there was anything more that they could do.

“I know Sam would have been very proud had he been there.”

This article is reproduced from the Newark Advertiser website.