Wales Air Ambulance calls out for votes to bag a share of Tesco’s community fund

As part of Tesco’s Centenary, the supermarket has teamed up with Groundwork to deliver a special voting round of its community funding scheme which will see grants of £25,000, £15,000 and £10,000 awarded to community projects.

Three groups in each Tesco region have been shortlisted to receive the cash award and shoppers are being invited to head along to Tesco stores to vote for who they think should take away the top grant.

Wales Air Ambulance is one of the groups on the shortlist.

Launched on St David’s Day 2001, Wales Air Ambulance is the official air ambulance service for Wales providing air cover to relieve illness and injury wherever and whenever anybody in Wales needs it.

Wales Air Ambulance is on standby 365 days a year and can be anywhere in the country within twenty minutes. Each year the four helicopters attend on average 2,500 missions and since 2001 the air ambulance charity has responded to over 30,000 emergencies.

The Charity, which has one of its four bases in Caernarfon, is funded purely by the people of Wales and receives no lottery or government funding.

Each year the charity has to raise £6.5 million to sustain the lifesaving service.

Wales Air Ambulance North Wales Fundraising Manager, Lynne Garlick said:

“We are thrilled to be one of the three charity’s chosen by Tesco’s bags of help campaign.

Throughout July and August, we kindly ask the people of North Wales to vote for us whilst they’re grocery shopping at their local Tesco. In 2018 alone, Wales Air Ambulance responded to over 1,100 missions across North and Mid Wales, accounting for almost 50% of the total number of missions we attended that year.

Having the support of the shoppers across North Wales will ensure we are able to be there for them when people need us most.”

Voting is open in all Tesco stores in North Wales and customers will cast their vote using a token given to them at the check-out in store each time they shop.

Tesco’s Bags of Help project has already provided over £75 million to more than 25,000 projects across Britain.

Tesco customers get the chance to vote for three different groups every time they shop. Every other month, when votes are collected, three groups in each of Tesco’s regions will be awarded funding.

Alec Brown, Head of Community at Tesco, said:

“Bags of Help contributes funds to community projects up and down the country and we’ve been overwhelmed by the response from customers voting in their local stores. We’re looking forward to seeing more projects brought to life.”

Groundwork’s National Chief Executive, Graham Duxbury, said:

“Bags of Help continues to enable local communities up and down Britain to improve the local spaces and places that matter to them. The diversity of projects that are being funded shows that local communities have a passion to create something great in their area.

We are pleased to be able to be a part of the journey and provide support and encouragement to help local communities thrive.”