Manchester’s Hotel Football has helped two sisters raise over £100,000 for Nacoa – The National Association for Children of Alcoholics, in its annual Northern Gala Dinner, held on Saturday 17 February.
Founded in 1990, Nacoa aims to address the needs of children affected by a parent’s drinking or similar addictive problem. It provides advice, support and research and seeks to prevent alcohol use disorder developing in this vulnerable group. Its research has found that 1 in 5 children in the UK are affected by their parents’ drinking.
With patrons including Tony Adams, Calum Best, Elle Macpherson and Vicky Pattison, its Bristol call centre receives over 30,000 calls per year from families and children.
Hotel Football’s charity partnership, poignantly led by Georgia Moran and her sister, Director of Sales and Marketing, Jessica Southworth – who lost their own father in October – aims to raise awareness of the vital fundraising the charity does to support families affected by alcoholism.
Georgia and Jessica, said,
“Alcoholism still has a huge stigma attached to it, not only for the person suffering from the addiction, but also for the families of those struggling. Over two and a half million children in the UK have a parent who is an alcoholic and the Nacoa charity is a lifeline to those young people.
Jessica continued,
“Hotel Football has always been very accommodating to my own circumstances, knowing that I had shared responsibility of looking after my own father. It has always supported me throughout hospital visits or emergency calls and being able to host this Gala Dinner for the charity at the hotel has been a fantastic way to bring both passions together.”
“Knowing we have this unprejudiced support has been truly remarkable to me and I would like to thank Gary Nevile, Ryan Giggs, our General Manager Chris Hull and the wider Hotel Football team for this. I have also received unwavering support from the AO Arena and Manchester United throughout these difficult final few years, once again proving that Manchester is a city which rallies round when things get difficult.”
Georgia and Jessica will be attending the House of Commons later this week to meet with MPs including charity patron and advocate, the Rt Hon. Liam Byrne MP, to call for greater support for families affected by alcoholism.
