Shoppers in Newmarket are being asked to back the My WiSH charity Every Heart Matters appeal this month as the town’s Waitrose store gives its support to the campaign.
For the appeal is one of three charities the store is supporting throughout November. The other two are Newmarket Rugby Club and Suffolk Constabulary, to help fund a Christmas meal for elderly people.
By placing a token in the Community Matters box at the store shoppers will be helping their local community and since its launch in 2008 the scheme nationally has donated £14 million to local charities chosen by people using the stores.
At the end of each shop people receive a token to place in a box of the good cause they would most like to support and the more tokens a cause gets, the bigger the donation they receive. Each month every Waitrose branch donates £1,000 between three local good causes.
The plans to support the appeal came after the store was approached by Chris Pelloe, who lives in the town and is a former heart patient and ambassador for Every Heart Matters.
And Waitrose Newmarket is also planning to make the appeal its charity of the year by displaying collection boxes in store.
The appeal is aiming to raise £500,000 to help fund building a brand new cardiac centre at the West Suffolk Hospital, in Bury St Edmunds.
The West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust is investing £5.2m in developing a state of the art cardiac suite that will provide quicker access to more treatments, but the £500,000 My WiSH is hoping to raise will lead to the whole unit, which is currently fragmented on different floors, being brought together in one purpose-built centre.
Di Robert-Shaw, the team manager partner compliance, at the store said: “Chris came into the store and talked to us about the appeal and asked us if we would set it up via the green token scheme and we agreed.
“We will also have some collection tins in store and make it our branch charity for the year.”
She said the appeal was close to many people’s hearts and that they were looking forward to supporting the campaign over the coming year.
If you want to support the Every Heart Matters appeal go to the website www.mywishcharity.co.uk
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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