Fire service raises over £6,000 for charities
AN OPEN day at the Guernsey Fire and Rescue Service station raised more than £6,000 for three charities.
A third of the money was presented to the Guernsey Down Syndrome Group, Guernsey Cliff Rescue Team and the Firefighters Charity Community (UK) yesterday.
The event held in September featured ‘behind the scenes’ tours, a bouncy castle and food provided by crew members.
Chief fire officer John Le Page said the fundraiser always aims to help one non-fire service-related charity with its open day.
‘We put it out to the crew which local charity they would like to donate to and a lot of people suggested this one.
‘The cliff rescue team is serviced by volunteers and they need around £3,000 a year to operate so this money will cover their running costs for the year to ensure they have the right equipment ready,’ he said.
The Fire Fighters Charity Community support the health and wellbeing of the men and women who may be affected as a result of working in the fire service across the country. Corporate and events fundraiser for the charity Kerry James said: ‘Thank you to Guernsey Fire & Rescue Service for all their hard work and to the generous donations from the community making the open day such a success raising a tremendous amount for The Fire Fighters Charity,’
Treasurer for the Guernsey Down Syndrome Group Helen O’Hara said the money would go a long way towards helping the 13 families in the island that use the group.
‘We’ve got a specialist, Becky Baxter, coming over, we’ll hope to be able to get her to come over a few times over the year. She works with the children and an app to help with visual teaching and learning and we’ve also provided iPads.
‘We’ve had amazing support from the fire station and we just want to raise awareness, it’s not a scary thing for the children who have Down Syndrome,’ she said.
