A MOUNTAIN rescue team has received thousands of pounds for new life-saving equipment.

The Aberglaslyn Mountain Rescue Team (MRT) is delighted to announce it has bagged £4,000 from Tesco’s Bags of Help community grant scheme.

The team will use the money to purchase two modern lightweight defibrillators, one for each of the crew’s two response vehicles.

Bags of Help is run in partnership with environmental charity Groundwork, and sees grants raised from the sale of carrier bags awarded to thousands of local community projects every year.

Since launching in 2015, it has provided more than £48 million to over 13,000 local community projects.

Millions of shoppers have voted in Tesco stores up and down the country and it can now be revealed Aberglaslyn MRT has been awarded £4,000.

A spokesperson for the Aberglaslyn MRT said: “The team wish to thank everyone that supported us with Tesco Bags of Help community grant scheme.

“It has enabled us to carry on supporting the local community with our life saving work and to be able to use state of the art equipment to do so.”

Alec Brown, Tesco’s head of community, said: “Bags of Help has been a fantastic success and we’ve been overwhelmed by the response from customers.

“It’s such a special scheme because it’s local people who decide how the money will be spent in their community.

“We can’t wait to see the projects come to life.”

Voting ran in stores throughout January and February with customers choosing which local project they would like to get the top award using a token given to them at the checkout.

Tesco customers get the chance to vote for three different groups each time they shop.

Every other month, when votes are collected, three groups in each of Tesco’s region are awarded funding.