Urgent funding needed for St John equipment and training

Wednesday 10 February 2021

Sponsorship of a community first responder, an AED and other life-saving equipment top the St John Ambulance Service's fundraising 'wish list' in a campaign that has been hampered by lockdown.

A major fundraising campaign was about to be launched before Guernsey entered into its second lockdown.

A series of fundraising events has been planned to help the charity hit its goal of £100,000 in fundraising donations.

“As soon as we were made aware of the new lockdown,” said CEO Nikki Harrison, “our focus immediately turned towards supporting the community and adapting our services to meet the urgent needs of islanders.”

“This means we’ve had to pause the planned launch of our fundraising campaign." The charity maintains a series of essential services from Event First Aid, the Flying Christine III, the Volunteer Ambulance Reserves and the Covid-19 response.

It has a wish list of essential training and equipment it needs to pay for, and this will be sent out to various businesses in the coming months:

“I don’t think people realise how much St John Ambulance Guernsey provides for the island,” said Ms Harrison.

“The charity doesn’t receive any funding from the States for the community services and we rely on the generosity of businesses – we can’t carry on providing our existing services or develop new ones if the funding is not in place.”

If you’d like to support St John, you can email fundraising@stjohn.gg, call 727129, or donate directly online.