Christmas tree collection service hopes to raise £14,000 for Sheffield Children’s Hospital

Two big-hearted gardeners will be raising money for a much-loved city charity this festive season by disposing of thousands of used Christmas trees.
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Landscape gardeners Mitchel Ingham of JM Groundcare and Joel Berry of Berry’s Tree and Gardens will be offering the service again this year and donating every penny they raise to Sheffield Children's Hospital.

They took over the service last year from long-time Christmas tree collector Andrew Powell, who retired in 2017 after running the scheme for five years.

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Mitchel and Joel's first year didn’t go without hiccups, they say, but they still raised an amazing £7,300 for Sheffield Children's Hospital, and hope to raise even more this time around. Part of this they say will come from a new website which will streamline the booking process, and they also hope that scaling the service back to just cover Sheffield will make things easier as well.

Joel Berry and Mitchel Ingham, pictured.Joel Berry and Mitchel Ingham, pictured.
Joel Berry and Mitchel Ingham, pictured.

Mitchel said: “We're hoping it will be bigger and better than last year.

“It was a bit of a steep learning curve.

“We’ve teamed up with a local media marketing company who have done the website for us. And we've also scaled it back a bit so we're only doing certain postcodes. I lost my entire Christmas last year."

Mitchel said they collected between 1,100 and 1,200 trees in 2018, but they want to collect 2,000 this time, hopefully raising around £14,000 for the hospital in the process

Joel Berry and Mitchel Ingham, pictured.Joel Berry and Mitchel Ingham, pictured.
Joel Berry and Mitchel Ingham, pictured.
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However, unlike last year, they will no longer be collecting in Rotherham or Barnsley, and will only visit postcodes between S1 and S21 plus S35.

"The fuel costs were just too much last year and we gave people a specific date for collection which we’re not doing this year,” said Mitchel.

“We’re just telling people the trees will be collected at some point between January 7 and 14, and they should leave them outside their house, not behind a locked gate.”

The service this year costs £10 for the first tree and £5 for every tree after that from the same address.

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Any tree over 9 ft tall, however, will have to be collected specially and will incur additional charges.

Collections will begin on January 7 and you can book yours now at www.christmastreecollections.uk.

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