A father and son team whose business was founded during lockdown have set up a charitable foundation to help a range of causes.
Phat Lads Competitions was created by Reece Thornton-Bate during the height of Covid in 2020 as a side hustle.
But as the competition website grew in popularity, the 30-year-old, from Cheadle, quit his recruitment job and brought his dad Paul Bate in to run the company with him.
Three years on, Phat Lads has amassed 40,000 Facebook followers (including closed group members) and 23,000 TikTok followers.
Around 1,000 people have won prizes – including cars, money, laptops and gaming consoles – totalling around £500,000.
Now Reece and Paul have set up registered charity Phat Lads Charitable Foundation after supporting a number of people with fundraising activities and donations.
The foundation will help families in need and other causes on a case-by case-basis.
It has already donated £2,000 worth of ride on cars to the NHS, which will be used to ‘drive’ children from treatment centres to the wards.
Four have been given to Staffordshire Children’s Hospital at the Royal Stoke University Hospital and others will go to hospitals in Cheshire and Birmingham.
Reece, who started off by giving away a pair of football boots, said: “Now that we’ve got such an online presence, we felt it was important to use that to be able to support our local community and have got big plans to make a real difference in the future.
“We are a small Stoke-on-Trent-based charity with big aspirations and even bigger hearts.
“The foundation will enable us to do even more to help families in our community who are in need, to financially help those who don’t have anywhere else to turn.”
The pair donated food parcels during lockdown and have also helped to fundraise for a family holiday for a three-year-old from Stoke-on-Trent who is suffering with cancer.
They have plans to set up a foodbank and clothes shop for people who need support.
Paul said: “Whether it’s by delivering food parcels and essential care packages, helping with travel costs for hospital visits, buying headstones for bereaved families, buying essential specialist medical equipment or donating prizes to numerous fundraisers including children’s hospitals, we will try to help wherever and whenever we can.”
Mark Jones, Directorate Manager at Staffordshire Children’s Hospital, has thanked the company for the ride-on toys.
He said: “Patients would normally travel between appointments or to theatre on beds which is a scary experience for them in our clinical areas. But it’s thanks to Phat Lads Completions that the fear factor has been taken away and replaced by an exciting experience.”
Reece has put the business’s success down to people having time to spare during lockdown – and a fun approach to social media videos with his dad.
He added: “We’ve got a great relationship and have lots of fun doing the Facebook lives and TikTok which seems to have captured people’s imagination because we do such daft things.
“Hopefully, we make people laugh as well as giving them the chance to win some great prizes, although we obviously urge people to be gamble aware.”
Currently-active competitions on the website have prizes such as a BMW M2, £2,500 cash and a Breitling Navitimer watch.
Entries are made by selecting the right multiple-choice answer, completing a form and paying a fee, although there is a way to enter for free.
A website for the foundation, which will sell branded merchandise to raise money for charity, is in the pipelines. There will also be corporate sponsorship opportunities.
Anyone who knows a cause in need of support should email [email protected] or message the Phat Lads Competitions Facebook page. All contact will be treated with the utmost compassion and confidentiality.
