Shoppers at Tesco, in Bury St Edmunds, and an agricultural club in Cockfield have helped boost the funds of the My WiSH Charity’s Every Heart Matters appeal.
A total of £4,000 was raised at the stores in the town through their blue token Bags of Help scheme which operates at the St Saviours Interchange and its other three smaller outlets in Stamford Court, Lawson Place and St Andrew’s Street South.
While £1,000 was handed over following a race night at Cockfield Village Hall by members of the Stanningfield and District Agricultural Club.
Bags of Help is Tesco’s community grant scheme where money raised from the sale of carrier bags is used to fund thousands of local projects in communities right across the UK.
Three community projects are voted on by customers with them changing every other month.
Following the vote, the project that received the most votes receive a grant of up to £4,000, second place receiving up to £2,000 and third place up to £1,000.
Customers are given a token when they buy their shopping that they can use to make their choice using the voting units in the stores.
The appeal is aiming to raise £500,000 to help fund the building of a brand new cardiac diagnostic unit at the West Suffolk Hospital and Lynda Osborn, the community champion at Tesco in Bury, said: “Having the cardiac unit at the hospital is going to be better for patients rather than them having to travel further for treatment as we will have all the facilities here in Bury.”
Meanwhile, the fundraising race night was organised by club members Terry Gardiner and his partner Jane Debenham.
With 70 current members of the club the event, which included a fish and chip supper, was hailed a huge success by chairman Marianne Simpson.
She said that Mr Gardiner is currently having to attend the West Suffolk Hospital three times a week to have dialysis and he suggested the race night to raise money for the appeal.
“My mother had a hole in the heart when she was 60-plus and we have had members who have had stents and it’s important to have this cardiac unit for local people as you never know when someone might need it.”
If you want to support the Every Heart Matters appeal go to the website www.mywishcharity.co.uk and if you would like to donate to the appeal you can do so by going to
Justgiving.com/ehma or text EHMA17 £10 to 70070.
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