A UNIQUE and highly successful approach to fundraising has helped a woman raise a stag-gering £50,000 for St Luke's Hospice.

For the last 12 years Di Parsons, 64, has been collecting items of unwanted jewellery from anyone who will donate them to her before selling them on, with all the proceeds going to the Winsford hospice.

She cleans, repairs and boxes the items before selling them at craft fairs, summer shows and garden fetes, with all of the money going to the hospice and its education arm, Cheshire Hospices Education.

To date, Di has attended well over 150 local events and has raised an incredible £51,000.

She has also given more than 100 presentations promoting the work of the hospice and CHE to groups throughout Cheshire, ranging from Women's Institutes to Probus clubs.

Di said: 'I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction from doing this and it's a lot of fun. Volunteering for St Luke's Hospice has brought me a lot of love and has enriched my life.

'I started collecting jewellery in 1994 but things really took off in about 1998 and I'm now over the £50,000 mark.

'People have been so generous. Without them it would not have been possible for me to raise such a large sum of money.'

Di, who is a trustee at St Luke's and sits on its governing council, volunteers as a nurse there two days a week. And she promised: 'I'm not finished yet. I have enough jewellery to fill four six-foot long tables and it won't go to waste!'