Vital cancer care service celebrates
A volunteer driver service helping Lanarkshire cancer patients has celebrated its 21st birthday – now it is appealing for continued support for its vital work.
Lanarkshire Cancer Care Trust held a special ‘thank you’ night for the men and women who volunteer their services to help those most in need.
Alex Brown, a trustee of the charity’s board, said he was “very proud” the service had reached such a milestone.
He added: “To celebrate the event with our magnificent volunteers, who live in every town in Lanarkshire, was fantastic. We are an independent charity, run by a volunteer board of trustees.
“We provide volunteer drivers to take cancer patients to hospital appointment, clinics and day-care facilities.
“Any cancer patient within the NHS Lanarkshire area can ask for help.
“The service is primarily for people who have no other means of getting to their appointments and who couldn’t cope with hospital transport.”
Looking to the future, Alex said the charity needed to raise over £4000 every week – 85 per cent of the Trust’s funding is raised by the patients and the general public in the form of donations and special fundraising events.
He said: “Our volunteer drivers give their time and vehicles free of charge. We repay them for their fuel and telephone costs, and we’re always looking for more drivers to help our expanding service in Lanarkshire.
“We truly are ‘A Local Charity, Helping Local People’.”