An Oxford charity which helps disabled people get back into work is celebrating after receiving its biggest single donation in five years.

Pathway Workshop, in Dunnocks Way, Blackbird Leys, gives jobs making handmade garden furniture to people aged 16 to 80 with physical and learning disabilities.

It was chosen as one of Oxford University’s four RAg (raise and give) charities and after a year’s fundraising, students handed over £14,500.

Pathway managing director Mike Kyle said: “It is very important to us and it is more than we had anticipated, the biggest single donation in at least five years. It has been an absolute delight working with the youngsters.”

The charity trustees will be discussing how to spend the windfall, but Mr Kyle said he hoped they would update some of the workshop machinery. It is also hoped it can help partnerships with Ruskin College and Oxford and Cherwell Valley College get full accreditation, so placements at Pathway could count towards qualifications.

The charity employs 17 people with special needs on a working wage.

The business is worth about £250,000 a year, with 75 per cent coming from furniture sales.

Daniel Lowe, Oxford University Student Union vice-president for charity and community, said: “We are really pleased that we can make such a difference to local charities like this one.”

Some £9,000 was raised by a sponsored bungee jump, £8,500 from a black-tie ball and £17,000 from an event which saw students dropped 100 miles from Oxford and told to find their way back to without any cash.

The same sum was given to Oxford children’s hospice Helen and Douglas House, homeless charity Shelter and Emerge Global, which helps female sexual abuse victims in Sri Lanka. The RAG team raised a total of £119,000 — the most ever raised — including specific collections for other individual charities.

fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk