Lancaster entrepreneur puts smile on faces of sick kids with supercar event

Through his Barrie Wells Trust intitiative, Barrie provides VIP days out for seriously ill and disabled children via his Box4Kids events throughout the UK.

Unfortunately, this is not always possible as some children are not well enough to attend or travel to the events.

This is why, last week, the Barrie Wells Trust Box4Kids initiative instead hosted a luxury car experience day at Alder Hey Hospital.

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool is one of Europe’s biggest and busiest children’s hospitals, providing highly complex and specialist care to children, and trust chairman Barrie Wells has been a patron of Alder Hey for 13 years.

The children were treated like VIPs for the day during tours of super cars, including two Lamborghini Aventadors and a Lamborghini Urus and the chance to use a state-of-the-art F1 simulator.

They could drive around the Silverstone racetrack in the simulator and see what it really feels like to drive at 200mph!

Barrie said: “We are absolutely thrilled how successful the Luxury Car Experience at Alder Hey was. The smiles on the children’s faces were priceless! One child said to me ‘I will never forget this day; I am going

to save all of my pocket money for a Lamborghini!’ It’s moments like this that make Box4Kids so worthwhile.”

The day could not have happened without the generous donation from Derek Beaumont, owner of the Rugby League team Leigh Leopards, who provided the Lamborghinis and F1 simulator for the day.

Derek Beaumont has been a supporter of the trust since March 2022, providing more than 20 executive boxes for Box4Kids guests to enjoy.

With the Box4Kids team on the ground on the day guiding children around the attractions this collaboration resulted in a truly special day for the families.

For further information about the Barrie Wells Trust and Box4Kids, contact 01524 590600, email [email protected] or visit www.barriewellstrust.org, Twitter @BWellsTrust or Facebook @BarrieWellsTrust

The Barrie Wells Trust is a Lancaster-based charitable organisation founded and funded by financial services entrepreneur Barrie Wells.

Barrie sponsored 18 Olympic athletes leading up to the London 2012 Olympic Games including Jess Ennis, Beth Tweddle and Katarina Johnson-Thompson and more recently 2024 Olympic 800m gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson.

Box4Kids was established in 2010 when Barrie purchased an executive box at Anfield exclusively for seriously ill and disabled children to enjoy a VIP experience from the comfort of an executive box, which is still used to this day for the same cause.

To date, more than 21,000 guests have enjoyed these experiences, in boxes donated by more than 280 companies, individuals and venues.

Alongside his work with Box4Kids, Barrie is hugely passionate about the pleasure of philanthropy. He is currently looking to persuade more high net worth individuals, like himself, to discover the sheer joy of giving to a cause close to their hearts, whether that be donating an executive box/experience to the Box4Kids initiative or supporting their own charitable endeavours.