A charity has had a disappointing response from its invitation to give total strangers £100 to invest in entrepreneurial money-making schemes.

A charity has had a disappointing response from its invitation to give total strangers £100 to invest in entrepreneurial money-making schemes.

Break, based in Sheringham, had hoped that 100 individuals and businesses would take up its challenge to turn £100 into £1,000 for the charity, which provides care services for adults and children with special needs.

The organisation launched its enterprising scheme on May 1, but so far only five applications have been received asking for a ton to set up profitable projects - despite blanket media coverage promoting the challenge.

Break wanted to raise up to £100,000 from the innovative initiative, which would have helped the charity get new mini-buses to take children on holiday, but the low take-up rate means only a fraction of the cash will be gener-ated.

As an added incentive Break will give a £1,000 prize to whomever collected the most money from their £100 initial investment.

Alan Leedham, Break's fund-raising manager, said: “The lack of response has been very disappointed. In fact we are now at the point of panic.

“To be honest we are at a total loss why so few people have joined the challenge because we thought it was a very fun idea and it did receive a lot of press and television coverage.”

Mr Leedham said he suspected one of the reasons why people had not signed up to the challenge was because they thought it was already over subscribed when, in fact, the total opposite was true.

One of the five people who accepted the £100 day challenge is Anne Joyce, from Norwich firm moneyfacts.co.uk, who is using the money to buy cake ingredients so she can sell tasty treats to her colleagues.

People have to be over-18 to apply for the challenge and Break will carefully vet all the applicants before giving them the £100.

The money will be given on the condition that all cash raised must be given back to the charity and the £100 can-not be used in any project which could be seen as detrimental to Break's image.

Anyone wishing to join Break's 100 day challenge can call Mr Leedham on 01263 820709 or email alan.l@break-charity.org

From Saturday, June 2 to Wednesday, June 13 a display of 80 paintings by members of Break will go on display at the Picturecraft Gallery in Holt. The artwork will be on sale from £30 to £300 and all the proceeds go to Break.