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Buckie firefighters smash festive street collection record


By Alan Beresford

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THERE was a record breaking Christmas in store for Buckie retained firefighters' charity collection.

It's time to moo-ve it! Santa, the station's bovine mascots and members of the collection team get ready to head out to Portgordon on the first evening of street collections. Picture: Becky Saunderson..
It's time to moo-ve it! Santa, the station's bovine mascots and members of the collection team get ready to head out to Portgordon on the first evening of street collections. Picture: Becky Saunderson..

After last year's street collection was hampered by Covid regulations – the team were not allowed to use collection buckets and instead asked people to donate via a web page – they were back out in style over December 13-20. A collection day was also held at Buckie Tesco on December 23.

People in Portgordon and Findochty as well as Buckie rallied to the cause in their droves, filling the collection buckets to the tune of £7374.68.

The figure smashes the previous record, set in 2019, of around £6300 and vastly outstrips last year's pandemic-struck £1500 total.

Watch Commander Colin Forbes said: "We're all delighted to have raised so much and broken the record.

"We didn't have a target going into this, we just wanted to raise as much as we could.

"People have been very generous and we'd like to thank them once again for their tremendous support. Everybody was pleased to see us when we went round the streets.

"Being able to use the collection buckets rather than rely solely on a Just Giving page made a huge difference to the total.

"We'd also like to thank Tesco for allowing us to do a collection on December 23 as well as everyone who donated. Despite only being there for six hours or so we made £1949, which is amazing.

Accompanying the firefighters and a festively decorated appliance were none other than Santa himself and mascot cows, Harris and Heather.

All of the funds raised through the street collection will be split between the Firefighters' Charity and local good causes. Local groups who feel they could benefit from a donation from the fund should get in touch either through Buckie fire station's Facebook page or by dropping a letter in at the station.

In previous years all kinds of charities and community groups, large and small, have benefited from cash raised by the firefighters at Christmas and at other events through the year. However, Covid has severely curtailed other fund-raising events, such as the popular charity car washes, over the last year and a half or so.

The Firefighters' Charity provides confidential, personalised support to the whole of the fire services community, delivering mental health, physical health and social wellbeing services at their centres, remotely, online and in communities around the UK. For more information on the work of the charity, visit their website at https://www.firefighterscharity.org.uk/


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