8:00am Saturday 6th March 2010
FARMERS who grow cider apples and Bulmers, which turns them into cider, have donated £25,000 to St Michael’s Hospice at Bartestree.
The two groups joined forces to raise the money to celebrate the hospice’s 25th anniversary.
At the start of the last harvest Bulmers’ growers were asked if they would like to donate 50p for each tonne of apples delivered to the new cider mill at Ledbury.
Bulmers offered to match it and then topped it up to a round £25,000.
Rod Lees, head of orcharding, said there had been a good apple harvest last year and the first full year at the Ledbury mill went well with the commitment of growers, hauliers and the mill team keeping the apples going in round the clock.
“To be able to make a donation of this magnitude, to such a worthy cause, is a marvellous way of rounding off the harvest for another year,’’ he said.
St Michael’s Hospice chief excutive Nicky West said that since opening in 1984 more than 20,000 people and their families had benefited from the care on offer.
It costs more than £10,000 a day to provide the services and about 90 per cent of funding comes from the community.
She described the amount of the donation as magnificent and thanked Bulmers’ growers and Gill, Chris and Ben for their efforts and generosity.
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