St Giles Hospice is celebrating after this year’s TreeCycle campaign became its most successful ever.

The environmentally-friendly recycling collection service picked up and recycled local Christmas trees in return for a donation to St Giles, raising over £72,000 – its highest ever fundraising total.

Hundreds of volunteers hit the road to collect trees from homes and businesses across the West Midlands and East Staffordshire, saving our local people the hassle of having to dispose of them themselves

Zoe Wright, Events and Project Manager at St Giles Hospice, said: “Over 3,500 people and businesses signed up this year to have their tree collected and recycled – a massive thank you must go to them for helping to raise this incredible sum of money.

“We’ve been overwhelmed with people’s generosity in supporting our TreeCycle initiative. Whether it’s the volunteers who gave up their time to collect trees, the businesses who donated use of their vans, volunteers and resources, or the local people who made a donation to have their tree collected – a huge thank you to each and everyone one of you who made TreeCycle such a success this year.”

The annual TreeCycle had also been supported by teams from Lichfield Tree Works, DHL, Wincanton, Handelsbanken, Central Co-op, Land Rover, Executive Business Support and Dana UK, as well as many others.

Zoe added: “Our volunteers tell us that they really enjoy TreeCycle and get a great sense of achievement from taking part. We hope they will encourage even more volunteers to get involved next year, so that we can collect more trees than ever.

“If you would like to volunteer at next year’s TreeCycle or if your business can offer us their support we’d be very happy to hear from you. To find out more contact us  by email at volunteer@stgileshospice.com or call 01543 434533.”

This TreeCycle collection was the eighth year the initiative has taken place, with money raised helping to fund St Giles Hospice’s work supporting local people, and their families, living with a terminal illness.

To find out more about upcoming fundraising events for St Giles hospice, visit: www.stgileshospice.com/our-events/