New charity fundraising scheme reaches milestone

Leading animal charity The Blue Cross is celebrating the success of a new initiative to generate additional saleable items for its charity shops with the help of vet practices across the UK.

Earlier this year, The Blue Cross teamed up with National Veterinary Services (NVS) to launch a campaign to encourage vet practices to accept donations of unwanted clothes and bric-a-brac for the charity to sell and raise funds. The Blue Cross has since taken in over 5,000th bags.

Jonathan Chambers Blue Cross spokesperson said: ’We are extremely grateful to NVS, the vet practices taking part in the scheme and their clients. We are overwhelmed at the response so far and looking forward to receiving many more bags of goods in the future. Although the donated items may be unwanted possessions to some, each bag generates about ’20 of income for us. This means the scheme has so far provided an amazing ’100,000 worth of income towards helping sick and homeless animals in the care of The Blue Cross.

Caitrina Harrison, Sales & Marketing Director for NVS comments ’We are delighted to be supporting The Blue Cross with this worthwhile initiative.

We have an experienced and flexible logistics team, who have been able to help with the delivery and collection of the clothing bags throughout the UK. We have had excellent feedback from many veterinary practices who have got involved and the requests for clothing bags keep coming in’

The Blue Cross receives no government funding, so relies on public donations to continue its vital work. All donations of saleable clothes, books and bric-a-brac are gratefully received.