Edna Tone, from Otterburn has been organising clothing collections for GNAAS for over 13 years and has raised more than £61,000 for the charity.

She currently holds biannual community collections in the spring and autumn at seven different collection points in the North Tyne and Rede Valley areas.

On the day of the collections, residents in the surrounding areas drop off their bags of unwanted clothing at one of the collection points, such as the local church, village hall or post office, and staff from the GNAAS Trading Company will pick them up.

Bags can be filled with clothing, handbags, belts, footwear and household textiles such as curtains, towels and bed linen, but duvets and pillows are not accepted.

Books, CDs and DVDS can also be donated in a separate bag and 100 per cent of the profits made by the GNAAS Trading Company are donated to the charity.

Mrs Tone said: “It’s just a good way of raising money and we’re all volunteers. Most people are just giving up a couple of hours a day for the collections and from what they tell me they all enjoy it because people are coming in it’s social, you’re meeting people and you’re raising money for a well needed charity.”

John Ballan, operations manager at GNAAS Trading Company said: “We are very grateful for Edna’s support over the years. She has been a massive help by organising several community collections in her local area which has resulted in a fantastic amount of money being raised for GNAAS. It’s people like Edna that help keep the charity’s helicopters in the sky.”

For more information on setting up a community collection point, please contact the GNAAS Trading Company on 01325 308139.