The Great North Air Ambulance Service’s (GNAAS) clothing recycling team visit collection points across the North of England between 9-5pm five days a week.
Members of the public can donate unwanted clothing, shoes, handbags, belts or coats, and our team collects it.
We receive a very good price for the clothing from our buyers, many of whom are based in mainland Europe.
Donated items are often sold in clothing shops; nothing is shredded or sold as rags. Any funds are channelled directly to GNAAS.
Our marketing intern Ella followed along with Ben, a member of the clothing recycling team, gathering collections for a day. Here’s what they got up to:
9.00am
Upon arrival at HQ, we were given a list of stops we needed to make that day and headed out to the GNAAS van to get prepared.
We got out onto the road and began our journey to our first collection point – Kirkwelpington Memorial Hall in Northumberland.
10.30am
We arrived at Kirkwelpington. Although this is home to a small village of people, they managed to pull together a large amount of collections.
Half the van was full already!
11.00am
After loading all the collections into the van, we had time to have a little chat with the workers at the memorial hall.
Eileen works in the Post Office at the memorial hall and happily told us about why she takes part in our clothing recycling scheme.
Eileen said: “It is very important that we support GNAAS because you never know when you might need an air ambulance somewhere like here. The charity means a lot to me.”
11.15am
After leaving Kirkwelpington, we swiftly set off towards our next destination – Byrness. A beautiful small village up near the Scottish Borders.
11.45am
Upon arrival at Byrness village hall, there were many bags of clothes left out for us at the entrance.
The van was getting full at this point!
12.00pm
Lunch time!
We ate our lunch out in the hot, sunny weather whilst at Byrness Village Hall, waiting to see if any more donations turned up.
12.10pm
During our lunch, we spoke to a lovely local from the area, Barbara, who shared with us why she supports GNAAS.
She told us: “It’s fundamental up here, because we’re just on the border below Scotland and fifty-odd miles from Newcastle.
“We’ve had numerous call-outs here, so it’s important to support them.”
12.30pm
Heading into the afternoon, we said goodbye to Barbara and went on our way back down the country towards Rochester.
1.00pm
Our first stop in Rochester was a lovely bungalow belonging to Mina who gathers donations for us in her area.
We stopped by her house and picked up the stacks of bags she had collected from her local community.
When speaking to her, she said: “It’s good to recycle your clothes instead of burning them or throwing them out, when they might be of use to other people.
This way they also make money for the air ambulance, which is important when you live out in the countryside like we do.”
1.30pm
After gathering the collections from Mina’s house, we headed down the road to Rochester Village Hall to pick up the last of our bags for the day.
We loaded these into the van and collected bags from locals who came and dropped their collections with us, before starting our journey back to HQ.
3.30pm
We finally made it back to HQ!
The van was driven onto the ramp for easy access to the bags, and our collections were weighed – we had seven tonnes!
3.45pm
The team got to work on unloading the clothes.
When unpacking the collections, the bags are checked and, if suitable for resale, put into bigger storage bags.
Once the van had been fully emptied, the team used their trusty forklift to move the bags for storage to give space for another arriving van’s collections to be unloaded.
4.15pm
After all the collections were completed, we were finally done for the day, and the clothes were ready to be collected by trusted buyers.
These donations are a great source of funding for GNAAS, contributing to the life-saving care that the team provides. The money generated through clothing collections is reinvested back into the charity, which goes towards keeping our helicopters flying and developing the service we provide, through investing in new equipment and improving our life-saving techniques.
This service is available across the North East, Northumberland and Cumbria and can be booked via GNAAS’ Facebook page or by calling 01325 308 139.
Donations can also be dropped off on-site at The Trading Company’s address – Progress House, Urlay Nook Road, Eaglescliffe, TS16 0QB.
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