By Betsy Everett
A staggering £3,614 has been raised in one morning in a Bainbridge café for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.
Rain, hail, snow and a bitter wind failed to deter customers who queued outside the popular Corn Mill Tearooms on Saturday, to offer support to the fundraising event for the life-saving service.
Inside there was barely room to swing a tea tray as people tucked in to substantial English breakfasts or waited patiently for a take-home bacon sandwich.
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Organiser Angela Peacock, who with husband James, mother-in-law Yvonne, and other willing helpers, served food for more than four hours, getting through at least 400 sausages, 480 rashers of bacon, 240 eggs, 150 bread rolls, 80 baguettes, and eight loaves of bread, all donated by local suppliers. There were also 85 raffle prizes donated by local residents and businesses.
Said Angela: “This amount of money would never have been possible if we hadn’t had everything donated. There have been no costs involved, and what items we didn’t have we donated ourselves. People have been incredibly generous and we still have money promised or coming in. We don’t have a lot of space in the tearoom but the customers and staff were amazing.”
Those who couldn’t get a seat queued outside under a small canvas shelter, or ordered sandwiches and baguettes to take home.
The inspiration for the fundraising event was their nine-year-old daughter, Ellie, who was airlifted to hospital by the air ambulance last year when she fell and broke her femur in the playground. Ellie has arranged small events herself in the past to raise money for the service which depends entirely on charitable donations to keep its two helicopters working.
The only help from the taxpayer is from the Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust through secondment of paramedics. It serves a population of five million people across four million acres and costs £4.4 million a year to run. Approximately 15 per cent of callouts to the air ambulance are for children, and YAA have recently purchased two new helicopters at £6 million each.
It is not to late to donate. Email Angela and James at james-peacock@btconnect.com for details of how to do it. Here is a list of those generous businesses who helped make the fundraising event a success. Donating businesses
