The Premier Charity Fundraising Car Show in East Anglia
The Rotary Club of Bury St Edmunds Abbey
The Classic Car Show is run by The Rotary Club of Bury St Edmunds Abbey. We are a group with approximately 50 members who, in the last year, have raised over £80,000 for local charities.
Last year we won the 'Event Organiser of the Year' in the Suffolk County Council Community Awards.
For the last two years we have won the 'Best Event by a Community Group' category in the Bury Town Council Awards. We were also 'Highly Commended' in their 'Best Community Group' category.
The car show is just one of our many events. Please take a look at our website to find out more.
Website https://rotary-ribi.org/clubs/homepage.php?ClubID=1968
Car Show Charities
We are pleased to announce that this year we are supporting two headline charities, 'Brave Futures' and 'each'. Please take a few minutes to look at their websites to see what wonderful work they do.
Headline Charity 2026
Brave Futures
Brave Futures is a specialist support service for children and young people up to the age of 18 who have experienced sexual abuse. We work across Suffolk and Norfolk, with a dedicated hub in Bury St Edmunds supporting children and families throughout West Suffolk. We provide a safe, welcoming space where children and young people can begin to make sense of the confusion they feel. Through specialist support, we equip them with the skills and tools they need to manage the trauma they have experienced, rebuild their futures, and move forward from victim to survivor.
Website www.bravefutures.org
Headline Charity 2026
East Anglia's Children's Hospices
East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH) provides care and support to children, young people and families, ensuring the best possible quality of life and making every moment count.
It has three hospices, including The Treehouse, in Ipswich. Care is also provided in the family home, in hospital and the community.
EACH supports both bereaved and non-bereaved families, and its services include expert nursing care and short breaks, symptom management, family activities and events, physical therapies, wellbeing support, care at end of life and bereavement support.
This year promises to be the start of an exciting period of change as major expansion work is now underway at The Treehouse, including a larger hydrotherapy pool, a wellbeing and therapies suite and a bigger, separated care activity area.
EACH relies on voluntary donations for the majority of its income and every year needs to raise around £8 million from donations and fundraising and £9.8 million in retail income. It only receives 15% of its income from the government.
Website www.each.org.uk
Other Charities Supported by Bury Abbey RC
Depden Care Farm offers therapeutic placements to adults with learning disabilities, acquired brain injuries and those recovering their mental health. Based in Depden near Bury St Edmunds, the award-wining care farm supports adults with additional needs to progress and live fulfilling lives by providing learning programmes and meaningful work opportunities in animal husbandry, agriculture, and horticulture. To enable the farm to further extend and enrich what they do, we have supported them with building a pig-sty which will enable them to breed and rear pigs.
Website www.depden.com
My WiSH Charity
My WiSH is a local charity, part of the West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. My Wish provide extras above and beyond to enhance the NHS care people receive. Examples of the work of My Wish are renovating a special garden at Newmarket Community Hospital to commemorate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and teaming up with a children’s author to produce a book to be added to memory boxes for bereaved parents. We were proud as a club to donate the proceeds of the Bury St Edmunds 2022 Silent Auction to My Wish to help buy the equipment you see here.
Website www.mywishcharity.co.uk
Rural Coffee Caravan
The Rural Coffee Caravan has grown over the last twenty years from one little caravan and one part time project manager making about 15 visits a year – to 4 vehicles, 7 staff, and a multitude of volunteers making around 400 visits a year with 4 extra networks across all aspects of community.
They believe that loneliness is everyone’s business and that involving both voluntary and commercial elements of community life help to make sure no one is left behind.
Website www.ruralcoffeecaravan.org.uk
Our Special Friends
The benefits of animal companionship for human wellbeing are proven. Pets keep us active and help us to ‘de-stress’; they provide an opportunity to nurture and care for another being. They provide unconditional love and stability in an increasingly complex world.
For many of us, pets are much loved companions but for vulnerable or isolated people, they are an immensely important lifeline to help stem loneliness and depression. They provide friendship, security, and continuity if the relationship is appropriate, mutually beneficial and well supported.
The people within the Our Special Friends community are the eyes and the ears for the hidden vulnerable, both human and animal and our role is to collaborate with other support agencies to change lives for the better.
Website www.ourspecialfriends.org
Suffolk Accident Rescue Services (SARS) provide specialist volunteer responders to assist the East of England Ambulance Service at the scenes of serious medical emergencies or trauma. They are often the first on the scene and their work, which is staffed 100% with volunteers, has saved many lives. In addition, they hold regular educational events such as CPR awareness sessions in schools to help highlight the importance of bystander CPR in reducing fatal cardiac arrests. We were pleased to be able to donate the proceeds of the last two Bury Abbey Rotary Golf Days to SARS. In return SARS supports us as a fundraising club. It’s a great symbiotic relationship and we're very proud to be associated with such a fantastic organisation.
Website www.sars999.org.uk
Suffolk Young Carers
Suffolk Young Carers (part of Suffolk Family Carers) provide support to young people who is caring for or emotionally affected by a family member who has a physical or mental illness, disability or misuses drugs or alcohol, or who is affected by the illness or additional needs of a sibling.
Bury Abbey Rotary Club have supported Suffolk Young Carers since the early days of the club, supporting sailing events at Lackford Lakes, barbecues and an annual trip to the Pantomime.
Website www.suffolkfamilycarers.org
The Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds was built in 1819 and it is the only surviving example of a Regency playhouse in the country. It is the third oldest theatre in the country, and it was restored to its original Regency design in 2007. We support the Theatre Royal financially because it is important to the cultural life of the town. The seating capacity is small as there are only 350 seats. Even if every seat was sold at every performance, the theatre would not be financially viable, so the theatre depends on the generosity of its sponsors, patrons, and local donors to survive. We were pleased to be able to support them again from the proceeds of our newly restarted St. Edmunds Day Dinner in November 2023 and again in 2024.
Website www.theatreroyal.org