An artist from Sunderland has put his original painting up for online raffle in order to raise funds for his local Community Interest Company (CIC), Veterans in Crisis Sunderland (VICS).

Chris Cummings painted an image of a football fan and dog watching the EFL Trophy Cup Final between Sunderland and Tranmere Rovers, which is being held at Wembley Stadium this Sunday. With the current COVID19 restrictions in place, no fans can attend the 90,000 seater stadium.

Both clubs have produced non-attendance tickets which has raised over £100,000 for charities and now Chris has included his painting, which features on the front cover of Sunderland fans’ magazine, Ha’way! in a bid to raise even more funds for charity.

Chris said: “I was asked to design and paint a picture for the magazine and it made sense for me to raffle this off and what better cause for me in the area than Veterans in Crisis? It will be a unique final for the city, club and fans, but a lot of good has come out of the match for charities and hopefully Veterans in Crisis can benefit from the occasion too.”

Veterans in Crisis Sunderland was formed by former soldier, Ger Fowler and the CIC has gone from strength to strength in recent years, opening their own ERV building, where veterans and their families from the area can drop in and also those in crisis can be assisted with instant help and emergency accommodation available.

On hearing the news about the painting, Ger said: “We are thrilled to hear about Chris’ decision to raffle his painting to help raise funds for VICS. As everyone can see it is a brilliant picture and a unique souvenir and keepsake for any football fan to have.”

All fans need to do to buy a raffle ticket is visit www.paypal.com and click send funds to the following email address which is nicnicw@yahoo.co.uk

A strip of raffle tickets costs £5 and any amount of strips can be bought.

The raffle will then be drawn live on Facebook by Ha’way! Magazine on Sunday at 14:30 hours, half an hour before kick off in the Papa Johns EFL Trophy Final on Sunday.

Ha’way! magazine has also produced a one-off cup final magazine featuring the artwork from Chris with 10% of every sale of the magazine going to Veterans In Crisis. Copies can be pre-ordered from – Ha’way! Magazine EFL Trophy Final Special Issue – Mackem Cards