Supporters from Exeter, Exmouth, Ottery St Mary, Honiton, Sidmouth, Tiverton and Crediton recycled their Christmas tree in January using our collection service in return for a donation.
Over 2,067 Christmas trees were collected by our hard-working volunteers, raising an incredible £38,000, which will ensure we can continue providing our specialist services to local patients and their families when they need it most.
Laura Robertson, Fundraising Projects Manager at Hospiscare, explains, “We are so grateful to our community for supporting our Christmas tree recycling scheme every year and helping us raise an incredible amount of money, your donations help ensure patients and families living with terminal-illness can access our services when they need it most. We also couldn’t do it without the support of the local businesses who give up their time to collect trees. 2024 is set to be challenging as we face a £2.5 million funding gap and threat to our services, making fundraising more important than ever.”
We couldn’t run this annual service without the help and support of our community. This year’s recycling scheme was a huge success thanks to the 78 volunteers and 26 local businesses who donated their time and vans to help us collect trees.
Juju, Marketing Executive at Thrifty, says, “We’ve been proudly supporting Hospiscare, one of our charity partners, for several years. The excellent care they provide has benefitted the family and friends of several of our employees. We’re delighted to be supporting such a great cause.”
The Christmas trees are recycled and reused, helping to reduce landfill waste. The University of Exeter chip trees into mulch and reuse across their campus in various ways, and Coastal Recycling take trees to their green waste processing site to be recycled into a high-quality compost which can be used to grow Christmas trees in the future.
If you are a business, van owner or driver and would like to volunteer to collect trees to support your local hospice in 2025, please email treecollection@hospiscare.co.uk to register your interest.
Hospiscare’s Christmas Tree Recycling works in partnership with JustHelping, who support volunteers, businesses and charities to contribute to their community and the environment.
