Just Helping, a non-profit organisation, are continuing the Christmas spirit of helping others by offering a service where you can pay to get your Christmas tree collected, aiming to raise money for local hospices.
This year, the charity has over 50 hospices nationwide including Salford’s St Ann’s hospice.
The Christmas tree collection enables people to have their tree collected for a small donation once the festive season is over and all the money goes to a good cause.
‘Just Helping’ was originally founded in 2012 but the idea came about to founder Nick Stammers when his neighbour did a Christmas tree collection.
The original Christmas tree collection was carried out by Stammers’ neighbour, who had the task of making ten pounds grow and he did this by collecting his neighbour’s Christmas tree.
At the end of the collection, the neighbour raised over £200 for his local church, as well as a children’s hospice and everything has grown from there.
Hospices within the UK only receive 32% of government funding and have to make up the other 68% through fundraising events.
However, due to the pandemic, a lot of the events that hospices and charities would normally host haven’t been able to go ahead.
Victoria Bennett, Just Helping’s charity manager, stated: “Hospices have suffered so much this year with COVID. They’ve not been able to do all their summer events, their marathons. It’s all gone a bit online. They haven’t been able to do their fundraising days. There is huge pressure on hospices.”
To get involved with the Christmas tree collection, it’s as simple as registering your postcode online and donating an amount of your choice. The rest is all done for you.
“People register their trees and give their donations and then we do the routing and mapping. We have a routing and mapping partner who do it for nothing and they are hugely supportive. We have volunteers as well who help us. Last year we collected over 40,000 trees so it’s a really big job.”
In 2020, the Christmas Tree collection raised over £582,000 for hospices and other charities by collecting and recycling over 44,228 unwanted Christmas trees in towns and cities across the UK.
Why not join in this year? https://t.co/95DZLc17KE
— JustHelping (@charityxmastree) November 18, 2020
Once the festive season comes to an end and you’ve registered your tree, there is an allocated weekend where you will leave your tree at your front door, and the volunteering team will come and collect it.
“We recycle these trees, we chip them with them local chippers. They are used sometimes within the hospice grounds to keep the weeds at bay or for paths. This year they are going to be used for a local fishing club and some for the bigger collections are used for biofuels.”
To find out more about the collection head to the Just helping website here.
Registration for Christmas Tree collection by @charityxmastree is now open! 🎉
From the 14th -17th January, a team of volunteers will be collecting Christmas Trees from multiple locations in Manchester. Find out more and register your tree collection here: https://t.co/hnrZO9eva5 pic.twitter.com/FGHsFx2j2m— St Ann’s Hospice (@StAnnsHospice) November 25, 2020
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