Photo: (Left to right) – Jo Dyke, Community and Membership Adviser of the Heart of England Co-operative Society; Sheila Curley and Marcus Cooper of The Co-operative Funeralcare; Anne Langley, Chair of Cruse Bereavement Care, and Darryl Smith, General Manager of the Funeral Division at the Heart of England Co-operative Society.
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
The Heart of England Co-operative Society shoppers have helped swell the coffers of a Coventry and Warwickshire bereavement charity by £2,500.
Cruse Bereavement Care was one of 15 charities across the Society’s trading area of Coventry, Warwickshire, south Leicestershire and Northamptonshire to receive a share of £25,000 from the Society.
The money, raised through the sales of 5p carrier bags, will be used over the next 12 months to pay for the counselling of 30 clients dealing with bereavement.
It will also provide training for three new volunteers, and travel expenses for the volunteers who conduct the majority of their counselling work in clients’ homes.
Anne Langley is the area chair for Cruse Bereavement Care.
She said: “We are hugely grateful to the many customers of the Heart of England Co-operative Society who have supported our wonderful cause.
“Talking to a trained volunteer does make an enormous difference to people who have lost a loved one and we always face enormous demand for our service as we help people to recover and rebuild their lives.”
With the second highest number of votes among shoppers in the Rugby area, the YMCA received £1,500, while Warwickshire CAVA (Community And Voluntary Action) received £1,000.
The Society is among thousands of retailers operating a government levy introduced in October 2015 to reduce damage to the environment.
It followed statistics released by the government which revealed that shoppers used more than 7.6 billion single-use plastic carrier bags in 2014, equating to 61,000 tonnes, or 140 bags for every person in Britain.
Further research undertaken on behalf of the government revealed the average household contained some 40 carrier bags around the home, while the number of bags dished out by supermarkets continued to rise year on year in the five years to 2014.
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