Young artist raises thousands of pounds for Chesterfield Royal Hospital

Nicole Lander has drawn and sold nearly 200 personalised pictures of key workers standing around Chesterfield’s Crooked Spire Church.

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The creative 18-year-old, of Clay Cross, made a remarkable £2,150 which she has donated to the Royal’s charity.

Nicole, a Tupton Hall School student who will study product design at De Montfort University in September, said: “When lockdown happened and I couldn’t go back to 6th form, I quickly realised that I had a lot of free time on my hands.

“I wasn’t doing anything constructive so had a think about how I could do something that would help others.

“I saw that a lot of people were supporting the NHS and that inspired me to think about how I could get involved which was when I hit on the idea of doing something through my artwork.

“I posted my first piece which was a tribute to all of our local key workers surrounding our town’s most famous landmark and it received a lot of interest.

“It grew from there with people wanting me to personalise it in some way.

“I was able to hand draw each one and ended up doing more than 180 separate ones that took me around 240 hours to do at around five per day.

“I’m just pleased to be able to do something that I’ve enjoyed, has made people happy and raised money for a very good cause.”

Ken Godber, Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s charity director, said the money will ‘enhance the health and wellbeing’ of staff and patients.

He added: “Nicole has given up a huge amount of time and used her considerable talents to produce something incredible.

“I’d like to thank Nicole and everyone who has supported this campaign for their efforts.”

Nicole’s mum Tracey said: “I’m so proud of her – she’s got a really big heart.

“She’s very talented and her work is a really lovely tribute to our key workers.”

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