DIVERSE Abilities’ Christmas Treecycling scheme has raised almost £20,000 for its vital services through recycling trees after the festive period.

Naomi Richards, fundraising officer, said: "We are so thrilled to have a record-breaking year for Christmas Treecycling after an incredibly difficult 2020 and despite the lockdown restrictions changing just days before our collections were due to take place.

"Our utmost priority was to keep our volunteers and collections safe, ensuring that we adhered strictly to all COVID legislation. We therefore thank our bookers for their support and patience, as this meant that the collection took a little longer than we had planned.

"Over the festive period we provided more than 8,000 hours of vital care to the children, adults, and families we support through respite care, care in the home, activities, and parties. Our teams have worked so hard to ensure we can have some semblance of a normal Diverse Abilities Christmas amongst the guidelines we are working with, and they’ve done an amazing job."

Members of the public made donations to the charity in exchange for having their Christmas tree collected and recycled.

Sponsored by Maidmans Removals, Waste Management Facilities Limited, and Keyfort, the treecycling collection took place from Saturday January 9 until Tuesday January 12 and saw more than 1,500 trees collected by 37 volunteers across 24 postcodes in Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole, up to Ferndown, Verwood, and Wimborne, and out as far as Blandford.

Other companies involved in supporting the organisation include Abacus vehicle hire, Adventure Wonderland, Barclays Eagle Labs, BCP Council, Boundary Fencing Bournemouth, Castlemain Groundworks, Dorset Sports Cars, Drewlec Electrical Services, Serenus Landscapes, Strouden Joinery, The Pilot Pub, and The Watersports Academy.

Naomi added: "We want to extend a massive thank you to all the businesses that helped us pull this together again this year, we really could not have done it without the help and support of our amazing volunteers. Bring on the next Christmas."