Origins

Mark and Lucy started The Millar Foundation after several years of raising money for school trips at Mark’s old primary school to send the children to a pantomime every Christmas. This was done by auctioning the name of a new comic-book character to his international audiences and the proceeds would bus all the children of St Bartholomew’s in Coatbridge to a different show every year. However, after a while Mark and Lucy funded these trips personally and after selling their company to Netflix were able to expand the scope of what they wanted to achieve in Mark’s old housing estate.

Events

The free Christmas pantomime trip has been extended beyond St Bartholomew’s and now includes both Pentland and Townhead Primary, the other two schools in the housing scheme. The Millars have committed to paying for these trips for the next twenty years. In December 2017 they got more ambitious with their plans to include free lunches for pensioners, Christmas dinners and both music and variety shows for older people in the area. They have also privately-funded everything from comic-book conventions, flying in guests from around the world, to superhero fun-runs, a cash injection into the local Boys and Girls Brigades and free children’s leisure clubs in the school holidays. A small token donation is made to secure a place at many of the ticketed events and 100% of these proceeds are given back into the community through the local clubs and churches.

During the Covid pandemic, their 2020 events were unfortunately impossible and so the Millars donated the money they had planned to donate on extending the St Augustine’s food-bank into Townhead, helping support Townhead’s two local churches and funding the installation of Pixalott camera system at local football club Albion Rovers to help provide a revenue stream for Mark’s favourite club while fans were unable to attend games in person.

Some examples are below. Please click for photos.