Christmas tree recycling campaign raises £70,000 for St Giles Hospice
A hospice is hailing the record success of a Christmas tree collection campaign which has raised almost £70,000 to help support people living with terminal illness.
St Giles Hospice’s ‘Treecycle’ saw more than 5,000 trees collected by 115 dedicated volunteers earlier this month from homes in Walsall, Sutton Coldfield and across Staffordshire.
A small donation was invited for each tree collected and more than £69,000 was raised.
Chloe Herbert, Head of Fundraising at St Giles Hospice, which has facilities in Whittington near Lichfield and Sutton Coldfield, said: “This year’s TreeCycle campaign has been a huge success and we are absolutely delighted with the results.
“Our 2021 collection was a record-breaking event following the amazing goodwill we had from our supporters during the COVID-19 pandemic so to beat that total in 2022 is simply amazing.
“We need to raise £850,000 every month just to keep our services going, so the success of this year's TreeCycle will make a massive difference to local people and their families at a time when they need us the most.”
Wincanton provided St Giles with logistics and volunteer support during the collections, and the trees will be recycled for agricultural uses at Greener Composting in Wall, Lichfield.
“We’d also like to thank Lichfield Tree Works, Central England Cooperative, Darwin Electricals, Robson Lister and DHL Fradley for joining our volunteers in the TreeCycle collections this year,” added Chloe.
“As always, our volunteers, community and businesses have been amazing and we couldn’t have made TreeCycle such a huge success without their dedication and support – it honestly couldn’t happen without them.
“Our volunteers tell us that they really enjoy TreeCycle and get a great sense of achievement from taking part and we hope they will encourage even more volunteers to get involved next year, so that we can collect more trees than ever.
“If you would like to volunteer at next year’s TreeCycle or if your business can offer us their support we’d be very happy to hear from you.”
To find out more contact the St Giles Volunteer Team by email at volunteer@stgileshospice.com or on 01543 434533.
