Sheffield: Mystery man's £100k bequest 'saves' Age Active charity

The £100k mystery bequest to the Age Active charity was "like in the films or fiction", Dave Schofield says

A charity has been "saved" after a mysterious benefactor left the organisation £100,000 in his will.

Staff at Age Active, which holds fitness classes for people over 50 in Sheffield, say the money was left by a complete stranger.

The bequest to Age Active was a share of a £1.1m payout to 11 organisations which received donations.

Dave Schofield, from the charity said: "It's a miracle - like something out of the films or fiction."

The charity had been considering "shutting up shop completely" after the Covid pandemic lockdowns, Mr Schofield added.

While exercise classes had been running at the Victoria Hall in Sheffield city centre for 30 years, there was no record of the generous stranger ever having attended, he said.

The money was part of a £1.1m bequest which saw 11 organisations receive donations

The first staff knew of the bequest was when it received a solicitor's letter.

"I was going to put it straight in the bin after I opened it and saw it wanted our bank details," Mr Schofield said.

However, after further investigation he saw included with the letter was a copy of the mysterious benefactor's will.

"It turned out he'd produced a list of 11 charities he'd left money to, one of which was us

"The actual value of the will was more than £1.1m and we'd been left an eleventh of it."

The Age Active charity offers fitness activities for over-50s in Sheffield

Both Mr Schofield and his business partner had attempted without success to find out why the stranger had left them such a lot of money, he said.

"We can't find him at all. We've looked through all the registers and he never came to any classes."

Mr Schofield said he thought the benefactor must have known someone who attended classes at the hall and decided it was a worthy cause.

"It's like a miracle. In the middle of lockdown, it saved us. It couldn't have come at a better time," he said.

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