Holiday park raises thousands for air ambulance charity

Stockton-on-Tees holiday park, Drovers Way, raised £2,200 for the Great North Air Ambulance Service at a recent fundraising party.

Close to 200 guests, local residents and holiday caravan owners, flocked to the park to enjoy entertainment including live music.

Park owners, Helen and Chris Brown, came up with the idea when the Air Ambulance moved its headquarters to nearby Eaglescliffe.

The Air Ambulance now has a good boost to their life-saving service, thanks to Drovers Way holiday park. Guests and residents to the fundraising event donated money and took part in a charity auction.

One of the auction lots was a wooden statue donated by local chainsaw sculptor, Lukas Beben. The wood for the statue came from local, sustainable woodland, also the source for the biomass boiler on Helen and Chris’s farm.

Drovers Park has impressive environmental credentials having won the David Bellamy Conservation Award for its wildlife initiatives.

Helen teaches some of the musicians who appeared on stage at the party. She said:

“Holiday home-owners at Drovers Way are very much a community, and a lot made special efforts to attend and bring along their friends and family.”

“Many enjoy walking in the surrounding countryside, and we are always conscious of that fact that if any got into difficulties, the air-ambulance would be a potential life-saver.”

The couple also unveiled a new, 8-foot wooden statue depicting a drover, which was modelled on Chris’s father who bought the farm over 60 years ago.