KEMP Hospice has just completed their third Christmas Tree Recycling campaign. Both the number of trees collected, as well as the amount raised to support the Wyre Forest charity’s care and support, has ‘grown’ once again from previous years. Between Saturday 9th and Tuesday 12th January, volunteer supporters from local businesses collected 400 real Christmas trees for recycling from homes across the district in return for a donation to KEMP, raising just shy of £6,000 – an increase of almost 60% from 2020.
The Wyre Forest hospice teamed up for a third year with local companies Rosie’s Ground Maintenance who chipped the trees and Hire It! who provided the chipper. Teams from Hobsons Brewery, Hatt Kitchens, and De Beers Garden Centre lent a hand again, and this year, they were also joined by Bepco UK.
Ed Nash, Marketing Manager at Bepco UK, said: “Following Bepco’s partnership with KEMP at the end of 2019, we just missed the boat on being involved in the 2020 Christmas tree collection. With a 130+ strong workforce at our disposal, we were keen to help out in 2021 but then COVID and the government measures to tackle it had different ideas. As a result, the business had to take the responsible decision to not have multiple team members out and about during a lockdown. However, I did not want to let KEMP down having missed out on 2020’s collection and promised that Bepco would help out this year – so I grabbed the Bepco van and hit the road with my partner to collect as many trees as we could.”
KEMP Hospice are beyond grateful to everyone who has participated in this year’s event: from the many local companies who gave up their valuable time to help, to everyone who had a tree collected and donated so generously to the charity. Every penny raised is spent right here in the Wyre Forest providing support for patients, families, and carers who are experiencing life-limiting illness and bereavement. The hospice is already looking ahead to the next year’s Christmas tree recycling campaign when they hope to collect from even more postcodes across the area.
