TWO LOTTERY winners from Mirfield were among those rolling up their sleeves to help create a rainbow garden for children with special needs.
Susan and Michael Crossland teamed up with a handful of other Yorkshire lottery winners to build a new outdoor area at the Elisabeth Svendsen Trust for Children and Donkeys (EST) at Eccup near Leeds.
The charity provides riding therapy with donkeys to children with special needs and disabilities.
Susan and Michael – who have four children – scooped £1.2m on the national lottery in July 2008.
Their windfall came after Susan took over her father’s numbers when he died from cancer in 2006.
The couple have since carried out charity work and made generous community donations.
Susan said: “The Elisabeth Svendsen Trust is a fantastic charity and I was only too happy to volunteer and get stuck in.
“I hope the children who visit the EST will enjoy the Rainbow Garden and the orchard.”
The couple joined fellow lotto winners – worth a total of more than £45m – to volunteer for the work.
Camelot staff also helped out.
Centre manager Cathryn Williams said: “We were so pleased to welcome these brilliant volunteers who have been an enormous help in creating our Rainbow Garden.
“The garden is an allotment area that is accessible for children with disabilities and will provide a fun, hands on activity for them to enjoy alongside their donkey riding therapy sessions.
“We are currently raising funds for a wheelchair accessible greenhouse to add to the Rainbow Garden and orchard so that the centre can move towards self-sufficiency, and the children will be able to enjoy lunches that they have grown themselves.”
The group spent a full day at the centre where they got involved in a variety of activities including digging and filling in flower beds with top soil, planting fruit shrubs, vegetables and salads, and making willow runner bean wigwams and fencing.
Those who took part also included Chesterfield Lotto millionaire Karen Child and husband Wayne Smith, Jackie King from Grimsby, Sue and Norman Harris and Elaine and Rob Leason from the Driffield Tesco Syndicate, and Tony Duggard, Julie Clark and Kevin Di-Miele, members of the Corus syndicate from Scunthorpe.
