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Gloucestershire Business News

Businesses: Can you help SARA?

Gloucestershire's own lifeboat organisation, SARA, is desperately in need of raffle donations to help it raise the £50,000 it needs every year to fund its rescues.

SARA, the Severn Area Rescue Association, is second only to the RNLI in size and is staffed entirely by volunteers. During these difficult times, it continues to support the local emergency services, providing 24-hour search and rescue cover and is on standby for any flooding or coronavirus-related tasks.

Every year the crew at SARA's Sharpness lifeboat station needs to raise over £50,000 to fund its rescue activities. A large proportion of this total comes from regular town centre collections and the annual open day. SARA cannot do its town centre fundraising this year and the open day in August is seriously under threat.

But it can still run the annual raffle, which is usually part of the open day. And this is where SARA hopes Gloucestershire's business community can help.

Deryk Pritchard, SARA's fundraising manager, said: "Now is the time we would normally be knocking on doors, visiting businesses and asking for donations for raffle prizes. But because of the lockdown we can't do this. Which is why we are reaching out to the business community to ask for help with raffle-prize donations - prizes that can be redeemed when the current lockdown conditions are eased. Perhaps you could donate a meal for two at your restaurant, a free car service, a round of golf, a case of wine, or any service that your organisation provides?

"We know that these are difficult times, but please be generous. In lockdown or not, there will always be emergencies where people need our help and we must be able to respond to them."

If you are able to help, please contact Deryck at deryck.pritchard@sara-rescue.org.uk  or call him on 07939 525744.

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