While we all love a real Christmas tree, knowing what do with it once Christmas is over can be a festive headache. But local children’s hospice charity, Julia’s House, can save you filling your car full of pine needles with the launch of its annual Christmas Tree recycling scheme.
Now in its fourth year, the charity collected and recycled around 2,090 trees from last Christmas, raising an amazing £17,232 in donations from people whose trees were collected, helping the charity continue to provide its specialist care for local seriously ill children and their families across Dorset and Wiltshire.
Helped by a fantastic team of volunteers from local business and community groups, Julia’s House will be carrying out its Christmas tree collections between 9th and 11th January 2025 from homes across Dorset, in postcode areas BH1 through to BH23 and BH31. . For everyone signing up, there is the option to make a suggested donation of £10 to support the charity’s lifeline of care for local families – the charity receives no other income from this service, only donations from people who have had their tree collected.
The real trees will then be taken to Adventure Pirate in Lytchett Minster and ECO Sustainable Solutions in near Bournemouth Airport and recycled as chippings for use on local farms and community spaces.
Katie Thompson, from the fundraising team at Julia’s House, said, “Our Christmas tree recycling scheme has become one of the highlights of our fundraising calendar. We receive such great support from our volunteer team of collectors and the public are just so generous with their donations – it feels good to be providing a helpful service to the local community too.
“It’s not always easy to dispose of your Christmas tree once the baubles have been taken down, so we’re happy to step in and help and in turn the public’s generosity is helping the families we support. A donation of £10 or £20 can help us buy arts and crafts materials for a fun creative play session or storybooks for a relaxing hospice sleepover for the children.”
And if you have a van or a truck and could spare a day or even a few hours on 9thth, 10th or 11th January 2025, Julia’s House team would love to hear from you as you could join their team of festive volunteers and start the year supporting your local community, please get in touch: katie.thompson@juliashouse.org
The promotion of this year’s Julia’s House Christmas tree collection in Dorset is kindly sponsored for by locally-based businesses, Eco Sustainable Solutions and The Fencing Centre.
Steve Randall, Managing Director of The Fencing Centre, said: “We are delighted to be once again supporting Julia’s House with their Christmas Tree appeal – this is our fourth year! It’s so nice to be supporting a great local charity that does such great work.”
Justin Dampney, Managing Director, ECO Sustainable Solutions, said: "The annual Christmas tree collection really is a 'win-win' for everyone involved. Not only does it raise a substantial amount of money for a great cause but also means the trees are disposed of sustainably by being turned into woodland mulch. We're only too pleased to play our part in helping make this happen."
Arrange your tree collection now and support local families and children www.juliashouse.org/christmas_trees
Registration for the Julia’s House Christmas tree collection and recycling service closes at 23:59 on 6th January (unless we reach capacity before then).