FOUR MORAY GROUPS were speaking of their gratitude to local Co-Op stores after collecting cheques from the store groups’ Local Community Fund.
The fund allows members of Co-Op stores around the country to nominate one of three charities to receive a share of profits from their local stores – and that allowed several to collect around £4000 in Lossiemouth on Saturday.
The three were the Moray Sports Centre, Children 1st and EarthTime. Meanwhile the Forres Co-Op was also releasing their Community Fund cheques with one of these going to MIRO – the Moray Inshore Rescue Organisation based at Findhorn.
Kathryn Evans from the Moray Sport Centre said: “The most important thing about this is just that the local community has engaged with us. That is very import to us because we are doing this for the community and this was a great opportunity for them to engage along with many other events.
“But they do not come around very often – and we would need many thousands of these things to happen to hit the target that we need.”
Collecting just short of £4000 was Jane Clunas for Children First, who said: “While my responsibilities as fundraiser for Children 1st is for the Highlands and Islands and Moray, this funding will be used in Moray. We will be using it to support our Elgin-based service as they are very short of funding at the moment – most of their funding comes from voluntary raised income.”
Project manager for EarthTime For All is Deborah Hockney, who said after accepting a cheque for just over £4000: “We are really thankful to the Co-Op and their customers – this funding is really important as we are just a small charity so need to raise funds that allow us to continue to deliver our activities in Moray. It is extremely generous of the Co-Op to allow us to collect this contribution which is invaluable to the work we are doing.”
In Forres meanwhile Paul Blair, MIRO’s Chairman, was collecting a cheque for almost £1700 from the Co-Op’s fund. He said: “We felt very fortunate and grateful to receive a cheque for £1682.44 from the membership of the Forres store.
“The money will be used for a communication system on the lifeboat – we would like to thank the manager and staff at Co-Op Forres but most of all the membership who supported us.”
Organising the presentations at the Lossiemouth Co-Op was Kelly Main, who told insideMORAY: “We are delighted that our members have once again reacted positively to our Local Community Fund. It works by our members nominating one of the local groups and from there a percentage from all their purchases goes to that charity.
“Even where the member does not name a charity, we simply take the balance of the fund and split it evenly between the nominated groups – this time around that was around £5000.”