A village’s Christmas event has gone down a treat for Andover Foodbank after residents raised a record amount to donate to it.

The Clatford Amateur Dramatic Society (CADS), based in Goodworth Clatford, has hosted ‘Christmas in Clatford’ for the past 16 years, collecting donations for charity after the free show.

This year, despite Covid restrictions, their show managed to raise £1,250 to donate to the foodbank after viewers from around the world watched it online.

Andover Foodbank thanked the group for their “incredible” donation and said that they were “very grateful” for the CADS’ help.

CADS was formed in 2000, putting on annual performances in March for villagers. Since 2004, they have also held ‘Christmas in Clatford’, and have raised £16,000 for a variety of good causes, including the Countess of Brecknock Hospice and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance.

Ann Buckley, the secretary of CADS, said that the society realised very early on that it wouldn’t be able to proceed as normal.

“We began to discuss how we could do it online,” she said, “and remembered that we had DVD recordings of the event from 2006 and 2008. The journey towards this online version started and thanks to CADS’ brilliant techies and members, together with friends, we recorded new readings in a Covid secure way.”

Normally, the group raises money for its events by collecting donations and organising a raffle at its performances. This time, it being a virtual show, they had to rely on the goodwill of viewers to make a donation towards the charity of the year, Andover Foodbank.

“In a ‘normal’ year we are only able to welcome around 90 people to the Village Club,” Ann said. “In the end, we had over 450 views of the event from locations as far away as America, Japan and New Zealand.”

As a result, ‘Christmas in Clatford’ raised £1,082 from donations, and the society used some of its funds to bring that total to a round £1,250.

The foodbank thanked the group for their donation, paying tribute to all those who helped make it possible.

A spokesperson for Andover Foodbank said: “This donation from the Clatford Amateur Dramatic Society is incredible and we are very grateful for their efforts to support us. The foodbank relies on the generosity of the local community and in a year that has prevented so much going on we have been amazed at the creativity of the community to make sure people get the help they need.

We had a very busy December, distributing almost 700 Christmas hampers and over 1000 children’s gift boxes alongside our food boxes and we could not have done this without these generous donations. We would like to pass on our grateful thanks to all who put together this virtual Christmas at Clatford and to all who donated.”