On 22 and 23 February 2005 Essex Air Ambulance will launch a mammoth tin collection trawl across Essex with the help of Ford Motor Company's Diagnostics and Service Products Europe Group based at Dunton Technical Centre, Laindon. Ford is offering the charity the use of 20 employees who will journey across Essex, in a fleet of Ford cars, on a mission to visit all businesses that hold Essex Air Ambulance charity collection tins.

The aim of the initiative is to collect full tins and replace them with new ones, promote the charity's sweet vending project, increase general awareness and promote the fact that tins bring in a lot of money in order to keep the county's Air Ambulance flying.

The charity has approximately 3000 tins out across the county and our records indicate that each tin can currently holds an average of £31.

Jean Twin is the charity's Community Fundraising Coordinator and is overseeing the project. She says, "We are delighted that Ford has offered to take on this community project. The Ford team will be working alongside our existing volunteer tin collectors to sweep across the county and exchange any tins for businesses that have not been visited in the last six months."

Christopher Nix, Systems Engineer at Ford Dunton Technical Centre said, "Ford Motor Company encourages all employees leave to work up to 16 hours per year on community service.

"My department selects a small number of worthy community service projects every year. Projects are put to a departmental vote and the most popular is chosen as that year's community service project. Essex Air Ambulance is a very worthy cause for us to support. The helicopter could save the life of anyone in Essex."

During the two day initiative the Ford team will also be gearing up at the Appeals Office, located at Earls Colne Business Park, to take calls from local business that do not currently hold a collection tin or sweet vending machine.

Jean says " We do have a good number of tins out in the community, bringing in approximately 4% of the charity's total annual income. Although this percentage may not seem very high, the tins perform a dual role of raising funds and promoting the Air Ambulance across all corners of the county, providing a direct link to the people who wish to give and may one day benefit.

"We would like to seek the help of our business community to get more collection tins or sweet dispensers out there, in order to increase this percentage and keep the pennies rolling in."

The charity's media partner throughout the tin collection initiative will be Dream 107 and and their sister station Dream 107.

Both stations will be promoting the work of the Ford team throughout the week leading up to the event as well as updating listeners on where the team is during the two day initiative. Dream 100 and Dream 107 will also be helping to encourage local business to contact the Essex Air Ambulance Appeals Office where Ford staff will be on hand to answer telephone calls.

Businesses who do not currently have an Air Ambulance collection tin on their premises, but would like to support the charity, can call the fundraising office on 01787 221828.

Published Monday February 14, 2005