We're delighted to announce that we are to donate more than £60,000 to a range of leading charities operating in and around the West Country. The first four charities to benefit are the Devon Air Ambulance Trust, the Marine Conservation Society, Farms for City Children and the RNLI. Many other regional and national charities will also receive donations throughout the year. ShelterBox, the Cornish based charity famous for its delivery of aid boxes, has already received a donation of £1,000 for its Haiti appeal.
We raised the funds from the VAT saved during the recent ‘VAT holiday’. Rather than taking extra profit or discounting our already published prices, we donated the 2.5 % VAT cut to our charitable fund. Helpful Holidays General Manager, Moray Bowater, said, “The VAT reduction made such a small difference to the cost of an individual holiday but we book over 17,000 holiday cottage breaks each year so we knew those small amounts would soon add up. It seemed a golden opportunity to raise some cash for the charities being hit hard by the recession.”
Each year, Helpful Holidays adopts a charity and invites its holidaymakers to make donations when booking their holidays - this year it is the Devon Air Ambulance Trust. At the end of the year, we match the sum generated by our holidaymakers. In 2009, over £2,600 was donated to the RNLI.