Best way to bee strong

Broken Pencil offices at Parkside Industrial Estate, Royton, Doing Biz for Yourself networking group all lent a hand to produce bee stickers for victims of Manchester Arena attack. (l-r) Dawn Torrington of Doing Biz for Yourself and Chris Stansfield of Broken Pencil.

A NETWORKING group of small businesses pooled its skills and resources to create a car sticker to support victims of the Manchester Arena bomb attack.

The Doing Biz For Yourself group run by Dawn Torrington created a sticker featuring the worker bee symbol of Manchester with a message of support reading 'Stay strong our kid' to encourage people to donate to the We Stand Together Manchester fund.

Dawn, who is also involved with the Oldham Business Awards steering group, said: "After the tragic attack in Manchester, Chris Stansfield, Andrew Stansfield and Paul Barrett at the Broken Pencil design firm came up with the idea of producing the bee stickers for free and suggested people donate to the fund.

"The sticker went viral on social media with over 2,000 shares and the demand for stickers was huge. So the guys reached out to other members of Doing Biz For Yourself, asking if they could help in any way and offer additional collection points for the stickers. Guy Sedgwick from Cartridge World provided some ink cartridges for free and other members helped in other ways."

Among the helpers were Rachel Walker of Corner House Cakes and Anna Kirkpatrick of Anna's Dance.

Dawn added: "This is a heart-warming story which shows the strength of spirit in the business community and the wider public in supporting such an important cause.

"Chris and Paul are very humble but they did an amazing job and have continued to print more stickers. Oldham West MP Jim McMahon was among those who supported us. He took about 300 stickers to distribute and support the campaign."