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Written by The McCarthy's Team on January 8, 2020

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This year we’re helping out again with the amazing St Gemma’s Hospice Christmas Tree Collection Service. Now in its seventh year, it’s a great fundraising initiative for an amazing charity – offering households a useful service for a donation.

Many of us love a real Christmas tree. The British Christmas Tree Growers Association estimates around seven million trees are bought each year. Did you know that England’s first Christmas tree was brought by Charlotte, wife of George III, in 1800? However, it was the trees brought by Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, in the 1840s which really led to a boom in popularity.

A standard six or seven foot tree will take 10 to 12 years to grow – and then we display them proudly in our homes for a month – and then what happens to them? Sadly, many end up in landfill – a literal waste when they can be a very environmentally friendly way to decorate your home for Christmas. The Carbon Trust reports that real trees have a much lower carbon footprint than artificial Christmas trees, if recycled. Recycled Christmas trees can be shredded into chippings which are then used in parks or woodland areas – helping keep our local communal and community spaces looking good too!

So, we’re more than happy to be helping St Gemma’s Hospice with this fantastic scheme again – which benefits not only the environment, but a brilliant local cause close to our hearts. On Wednesday 8^th January a member of our team will be taking one of our vans along to help pick up trees from homes which have signed up to the scheme before dropping them off ready to be recycled at sites across Leeds. Collections will be taking place across selected postcodes in the city from 7^th to 11^th January – although you may have missed signing up for this year, be sure to keep your eyes open to sign up next Christmas!

The collections have raised over £70,000 for the hospice over the years, which really helps the amazing work they do. St Gemma’s, which is based in Moortown in Leeds, not that far from McCarthy’s headquarters, is the biggest hospice in Yorkshire and one of the biggest in the UK. It provides the best possible care and quality of life for local people with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses both at the Hospice and out in the community. Despite the valuable work it does and the fact the care it provides is free, most of the money it needs has to be fundraised, so it’s always great to be able to lend a helping hand at one of their events. It costs a staggering £10 million a year to keep the doors open and every little helps. For more information go to www.st-gemma.co.uk

We’re always happy to try and help local charities where we can, whether that be with storage space or helping hands and a van! If you think we might be able to help your cause, do please get in touch.