From Friday 12th January, 2024, and for a busy few days afterwards, a highly motivated group of Wirral Hospice St John’s staff and volunteers will come together to drive or co-pilot around thirty large vans around Wirral, picking up used real Christmas trees from outside people’s homes and businesses.
It’s strenuous but fun work and people come back year after year to volunteer because they love it so much!
One person will take the wheel and navigate a pre-planned postcode route, while one or two crew members, will pick up the tree from each address and load it onto the back of the van.
The hospice tree collection makes a significant contribution to funding our specialist care and support services as people make their greatly appreciated donations, relating to the size of their tree.
Suggested donations per tree:
- £8.71 under 5 foot
- £9.42 5-6 foot
- £15.38 6-7 foot
- £21.53 7-8 foot
- £24.84 8 foot +
People often generously ‘round up’ their donations, but the reason for the odd decimal amounts suggested is related to what a donation will fund at the hospice. For example:
- £8.71 = contributes towards one minute of running costs for our hospice
- £9.42 = contributes towards food for one patient for a day
- £15.38 = contributes towards specialist palliative nursing care
- £21.53 = contributes towards physiotherapy for a patient
- £24.84 = contributes towards bereavement support for loved ones
- £30.76 = contributes towards hospice at home support visits
Other small local charities receive around ten per cent of the monies raised.
People, having stripped the tree of all of its decorations we do find the odd bauble, star, or fairy still attached, simply leave their used pine/fir/spruce tree in an accessible spot outside their house or business before 12th January and then, as if by magic, their tree will disappear.
Once each van is fully loaded with trees it is driven to various pre-arranged temporary ‘drop-sites’ around Wirral to offload for chipping, then it’s back on the road heading out for the next load. The chipped trees have further recycled uses, maybe in biofuel or even spread around at community farms and paddocks.
All the people who give their valuable time are fed and watered while fuel costs are offered to everyone who volunteers the use of their van(s).
Every Wirral postcode area is eligible to register and people can book from now, until 11.59pm on Sunday 7th January, to secure the hassle-free collection of their REAL Christmas trees.
Postcodes covered by Wirral Hospice St John’s include CH41, CH42, CH43, CH44, CH45, CH46, CH47, CH48, CH49, CH60, CH61, CH62, CH63, CH64.
Elaine Connell, Wirral Hospice St John’s fundraising officer, says:
“We’ve got our fingers crossed for another bumper year of Christmas tree collections, the generous donations make a huge difference to the lives of so many people in our Wirral community. A small army of people give up their valuable time and the use of their vans, year after year, to help with the used Christmas tree collections. It’s always a lot of fun for our hardy volunteers and we are so grateful to them and everyone who books a collection with us”.
To register a tree for collection people can book online at
www.wirralhospice.org/treecollection or call 0151-343-0778