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£11,500 Presented to Help the Heroes

A cheque for £11,500 has been presented to Help The Heroes, the charity that supports wounded service men and women from the army, navy and royal air force on behalf of the customers and staff of the Haskins Garden Centres. For 12 months, staff at the garden centre have organised a range or fundraising events and activities. These included the selling of selling wrist bands, raffles and collections, and local veteran Roy Hobbs, from New Milton who in WWII, saw action as a Sergeant in France with the North Hampshire regiment, sold books of his poignant war poems to fundraise for the non political charity that is dedicated to enhancing the lives of those injured in active service and in conflicts including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Roy Hobbs was joined by Janice Stuchberry, one of the fundraising team members at the centre and Chief Executive Julian Winfield to present the cheque to the Mandy Swadel and Shelia Addy, County Volunteers from the charity. Flowers were laid out spelling H4H by the centre to acknowledge the charity that was launched in October 2007.

Help for Heroes has recently fundraised to pay for the first four Personnel Recovery Centres. Work will begin immediately and we hope to see the first fully comprehensive centre open at Colchester in the spring of 2011 followed soon afterwards with centres at Catterick and then Tidworth. Further centres may well be needed in future. Although this is an Army led initiative, the centres will be available to members of all three Services on a case by case basis in line with our declared desire to support all members of the Armed Forces.

The Centres are part of a much larger Army Recovery Capability with Personnel Recovery Branches in 10 Brigades as well as 2 in London and Germany, all overseen by Personnel Recovery Branch, a new organisation that ensures that all the wounded are cared for on tailor made Individual Recovery Plans.
Help for Heroes funds will build the centres. Army staff will run them, The Royal British Legion will maintain them for at least ten years and have matched the funding of £20m to support the initiative.

“When Help the Heroes was launched to help wounded servicemen in 2007 we had no idea so many people across the UK would decide to join us and together, create the Help for Heroes phenomenon," said the Charity’s CEO Bryn Parry. "The money raised, £56m to date, is all used to provide direct, practical support to those wounded in the service of our country. We have already spent millions and we have a shopping list of future projects that will ensure they get the very best. We may not be able to prevent them from being hurt but we can certainly do our bit to help them get better.

The fundraising by Haskins and their customers is hugely welcomed, on behalf of all those who the money will benefit, thank you.”

(From left top) H4H Volunteers Shelia Addy and Mandy Swadel with Haskin’s Janice Stuchberry and Julian Winfield. Roy Hobbs with TA members from the 6th Rifles, Dorchester.

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