Barcud has recently launched a year of fundraising in aid of Wales Air Ambulance. The charity, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, relies entirely on public donations to keep both the rapid response vehicles and helicopters running.

The Barcud group is based in mid and west Wales with a 300 strong workforce and 4,500 tenants. The Barcud group is based in mid and west Wales and comprises Barcud Housing Association, together with Care and Repair in Powys, The Care Society and EOM. Barcud is committed to creating an ambitious, forward-thinking business, focused on developing affordable homes for rent and purchase, as well as providing essential first-class housing support and maintenance services for tenants and communities.

This is Barcud’s first year of fundraising for a specific charity and at the annual colleague conference last winter the majority were in favour of supporting a charity, that, like Barcud, helped and supported those living rurally.

Jason Jones, Barcud Group Chief Executive, said, “Everyone we speak to knows someone who has been helped by the Wales Air Ambulance Service. I hope my internal colleagues, tenants, as well as friends and families will help us raise as much money as possible through collections and events for this extremely worthy cause. It would be amazing if we aimed sky-high and raise more than our £5,000 target.”

Barcud got its fundraising off to a ‘treacherous’ start recently with a fantastic take on the BBC’s ‘Traitors’ which raised £135 and the Board raised funds with a fun raffle. A variety of fundraising events have been organised including Coffee & Cake events in all offices in Newtown, Aberystwyth and Lampeter on 15 April and 10 colleagues will be running Cardiff Half Marathon in October.

With a widely-scattered population and diverse landscape, many in Wales live in isolated locations, far from a major or specialist hospital. In urban areas, traffic congestion and collisions can significantly delay treatment when in a road ambulance. For these reasons, there is a recognised need for Wales Air Ambulance’s four helicopters to be on active duty 365 days a year. The charity needs to raise £13 million every year to operate the service and it has to raise all the funds required for the day-to-day running of missions. Each mission costs around £3,545, and the teams have flown over 55,000 missions across Wales since 2001.

Emily Bell from the fundraising team at Wales Air Ambulance said, “Wales Air Ambulance is funded by the people of Wales; we rely entirely on the public’s support to help keep the helicopters flying. The charity does not receive direct funding from the government and we also fail to qualify for National Lottery funding. The money is therefore raised through charitable donations, fundraising events and membership of our in-house Lifesaving Lottery. We are grateful to Barcud for choosing to support us for 12 months.”

Any donations to support Barcud and help reach the fundraising target of £5,000 would be very gratefully received. Click here to donate online: https://cardiffhalf26.enthuse.com/pf/barcud