COSTA POPPY APPEAL TOPS 30K

On the Orihuela Costa, where, last year the Branch raised almost €25,000, 15% of the Spain District North total, the enormous job of organising the local count swung effortlessly into motion at the Olympia Restaurant in Mil Palmeras last Sunday morning.

The Poppy Collection boxes, gathered in during the previous few days, were distributed amongst the thirty volunteers, and with the help of a recently purchased ‘coin counting machine’ the task got underway.

‘The machine made it much easier this year’ said Chairman and local Poppy Coordinator Keith Carter. ‘This is the first time that we have used it and we no longer had the arduous task of counting all that coinage. We were all delighted to be saved the trouble.’

‘But it was still an enormous task which has once again shown just how generous the Costa Blanca public can be for such a worthwhile cause and whilst I wouldn’t wish to pick out any specific contribution I would certainly like to mention ‘Mick the Grip’ Reeves and the local golfing fraternity which, including €6483.11 brought in just last week, has now donated 9077.74 euro to the appeal.‘

The room hushed as the end of the count approached. Everyone was hoping that the amount would exceed that collected 12 months ago, however, waiting for Keith Carter to announce the total was even more nerve racking than anticipating the results of an X Factor elimination vote, but when it did come the volunteers broke into spontaneous applause.

The total was €16,679.15 which, added to that already collected by the branch during the course of the year, brings the running total to €30,850.85, an absolutely superb achievement. 

With still more to come in from a small number of local projects, the final figure will not be released for some weeks, but it can already be seen that the branch is having yet another bumper year.