17/09/10

Nemo's Golden Challenge

This Friday, Nemo Personal Finance will be holding a Wales Air Ambulance Golden Day, encouraging everyone to ‘go for gold’ for the day.

Employees will pay £1 for the privilege of dressing up in gold; a Golden quiz will also take place, along with a bake-off including a Golden Day category. The best cakes will be chosen by a panel of tasters from the company, before being sold to raise funds for Wales Air Ambulance.

The Golden theme marks Wales Air Ambulance’s Golden Hour Challenge week, and aims to raise awareness of the service provided by Wales’ three emergency helicopters. The service aims to reach, treat and transport patients to hospital from anywhere in Wales within the first crucial hour of injury or sickness. This first hour is called the ‘Golden Hour’ because patients have a much higher survival rate if they can get to hospital within the first hour.

Wales Air Ambulance operates three helicopters across Wales, and between the three can reach any part of Wales within 20 minutes. This rapid response time means that patients can be transported to the nearest A&E hospital well within the ‘golden hour’.

The charity receives no government or National Lottery funding to help towards the cost of this lifesaving service. Its costs £5million per year to run the service, every penny of which comes through donations from the people and businesses in Wales.
 
Wales Air Ambulance Corporate Manager, Anna Evans said: “Employees at Nemo have really thought carefully about how to raise funds for Wales Air Ambulance during our golden challenge week and we are certain their efforts will be a success.
“We are so grateful to have been chosen as Nemo’s charity of the year, it seems as if they have really taken on the challenge of raising as much as possible for the charity.”

“The company has already raised over £2,200 for Wales Air Ambulance which is enough to pay for two lifesaving missions in our helicopters,” she added.