As with many large businesses across the UK, each year Nexus nominate a charity of the year with their employees fundraising throughout the year to raise money for the organisation. The 2023/4 charity for Nexus employees was Daft As A Brush Cancer Patient Care and recently a £9,600 cheque was handed at Newcastle Central station.
Daft As A Brush (which is based in Newcastle) transport up to 100 cancer patients a day to and from the Freeman Hospital, free of charge, relying completely on charity fundraising to buy and run their 30 patient transport vehicles, as well as on volunteers to drive them.
Cathy Massarella, Nexus Managing Director, said: “I’m really proud of our teams who have spent the last year raising this fantastic sum of money for Daft As A Brush. Lots of employees got involved in all kinds of fundraising, including jumping out of aeroplanes, to help this really worthy local cause. Thank you to everyone who donated money, took part in activities or organised events. The charity relies on donations, so I’m delighted that we can donate almost £10,000, an incredible amount, which will be a significant help to them.”
David Wilson, Development Manager at Daft As A Brush, said: ““I want to say a massive thank you to everyone at Nexus for choosing to support us. You have raised a fantastic amount of money, which supports the running of our service and supporting cancer patients across the region. We receive no Government funding so are extremely grateful for donations like these. This amount will mean we can support about 1000 cancer treatment journeys, in terms of fuel for our vehicles and support for our volunteers.”
Funds were raised through a variety of methods, including a sky dive by four employees (raising over £2,000), raffles, coffee mornings, bingo sessions and wellbeing walks plus sales of lost property, Metro merchandise and cakes. Daft As A Brush volunteers also collected over £300 at bucket collections at Monument Metro Station.