Yorkshire Air Ambulance has made a festive fund raising plea to have a Christmas clear-out to help keep its helicopters flying in 2015.
The rapid response emergency charity is calling on people to bag up any unwanted clothes, shoes, bags, curtains and bedding and donate them through their successful recycling campaign.
- YAA is an independent Charity needing to raise £9,990 per day to keep both of Yorkshire’s air ambulances in the air and maintained. This is equivalent to £3.6 million each year.
- The YAA provides a life saving rapid response emergency service to 5 million people across 4 million acres of Yorkshire.
- The operate two helicopters, G-SASH and G-CEMS from their Nostell Air Support Unit near Wakefield and RAF Topcliffe, near Thirsk.
The service is operational 365 days a year. - Patients are transferred to the most relevant treatment centre, flying at speeds of up to 160mph.
- The Yorkshire Air Ambulance was the first air ambulance in the UK to own and operate a dedicated air desk for dispatch of the helicopters
- Since coming online in October 2000, over 5,800 patients have been carried to relevant treatment centres.
- The work of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance has also been documented by the successful BBC 1 series, ‘Helicopter Heroes’, most recently in April 2014.
- The Yorkshire Air Ambulance receives no government funding. The only help we receive is through the secondment of our paramedics from the Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust.
Yorkshire Air Ambulance (YAA) Partnership Manager Katie Collinson said: The lead up to the festive season and the Christmas period itself is a really good time to have a clear-out of those wardrobes and drawers,”
So we’re asking people if they will make us a gift of their unwanted items – whether it’s that that dress that’s been hung up for years but never worn or a dodgy Christmas jumper or slippers.
Filling a recycling sack is a Christmas gift that doesn’t cost people any money but means so much to us.
Yorkshire Air Ambulance, which provides a rapid response emergency service to 5million people, needs to raise £9,990 each day to keep its two helicopters in the air and maintained – that is equivalent to £3.6 million a year.
The stuff Yorkshire folk no longer need provides a massive cash boost for the county’s helicopter heroes.
Since launching its recycling scheme nine years ago with partner the BIU Group, a staggering £2 million has been donated to the YAA from bags of unwanted clothes, shoes and household textiles.
Katie added: We would like to say a huge thank you to all our supporters who have donated their unwanted items to us and made such a massive difference.
Once again the generosity of Yorkshire families just takes our breath away. We have a brilliant relationship with our recycling partners Bag It Up, who gives us a percentage of all the recycled material we collect which adds up to around £300,000 a year!
The charity has 250 recycling textile banks at household waste sites, supermarkets and car parks across Yorkshire. You can find out where your nearest bank is by either going to the YAA website (www.yaa.org.uk) or by calling 01422 237900.
Louise Knapton, BIU Director, said: During the nine years of our partnership with the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, our teams have worked extremely hard to build on the recycling infrastructure we introduced in 2005. But it’s the people of Yorkshire that have enabled us to reach this remarkable milestone. To raise £2m is a massive achievement that we are extremely proud of.
Our sincere thanks go out to everyone who continues to support our scheme; from the Councillors and local authorities, to the businesses who host our recycling banks at their premises, and to the donors who recycle their unwanted garments with the YAA.
The YAA operates two helicopters from bases in West and North Yorkshire and in its 14-year history has transported more than 5,800 patients.
Without any direct government funding, the only help the charity receives is through the secondment of its paramedics from the Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust.
