Santa's Sleigh helps raise £10,000

Dec 28 2011 by Judith Tonner, Airdrie & Coatbridge

Airdrie & District Round Table

AIRDRIE and District Round Table raised more than £10,000 for local good causes as Santa’s sleigh travelled Monklands.

The festive favourite visited more homes and streets across Airdrie and Coatbridge than ever before to raise the magnificent total.

Round Table members will now use the magnificent sum to support a wide variety of community initiatives early in 2012.

The organisation’s popular sleigh route and “Santa’s letters” scheme – the main events in their fundraising calendar – earned £10,300 in donations from generous local residents.

Their chairman, Chapelhall man Norbert Grant, said: “The thing that surprised us most was the very considerable generosity of people, especially given the financial constraints at the moment.

“People don’t have a lot of disposable income, so this year we made the route bigger than ever, with our members working harder and including more houses to reach that total.

“The welcome and support we had as we went round Airdrie and Coatbridge was wonderful; residents and children were very welcoming and looked forward to Santa visiting.

“One of the biggest things for us is the fantastic support of our sponsors – we couldn’t do any of this without TOM, Martin Plant Hire and the Flower Basket, and the Advertiser for publicising our routes.”

The local Round Tablers now have a generous cash boost with which to begin 2012, and already have three projects in mind.

Among their plans are supporting good causes in Airdrie and Coatbridge, making small £50 grants to community groups, and involving secondary school pupils in an enterprise challenge.

Norbert said: “We hope that the schools’ project will go on to benefit St Andrew’s Hospice, and we’re looking forward to making good use of the money we’ve raised this Christmas – we aim to distribute £3000 in the next three months.”