The donation to Whiteley’s Retreat in Alloway near Ayr, which offers holidays and short breaks to children suffering from terminal illnesses and Macmillan Cancer Support, was helped by the employees receiving a cash reward from Drax Group in recognition of their excellent safety record at work.
The teams donated the reward along with the proceeds from a clay pigeon shoot to the charities, with the total raised match funded by Drax.
Ian Kinnaird, Drax Group’s Scottish Assets & Generation Engineering Director, said:
“Health and safety is Drax’s number one priority and the teams at Galloway and Lanark have had an excellent safety record for 15 years across all of the sites within the hydro schemes. We wanted to acknowledge that with a reward.
“I’m really proud that the team used the reward to do something positive for the local community – continuing Drax’s long tradition of supporting the communities local to its operations.”
Gibb Wallace, Civil Team Leader at Drax’s Galloway and Lanark Hydros, organised the fundraising event. He said:
“Colleagues wanted to give back to local charities and get together after spending such a long-time social distancing and working from home due to covid restrictions. We thought an outdoor fundraising activity, such as a clay pigeon shoot would be a nice way to do some team building, whilst supporting charities close to the hearts of our team.
“The event coincided with us receiving the award for safe working, and everyone agreed we should donate the money to the charities. We hope it will make a difference and support the incredible work they do.”
Maxine Allen, Whiteley’s Retreat CEO, said:
“On behalf of the team at Whiteleys and the families we support, we would like to thank the staff at Drax, for their kind and generous donation to Whiteleys Retreat.
“What a great achievement and this kind donation will go towards Whiteleys continuing to be able to provide therapeutic short breaks and extended support for children, young people and their families with cancer and life altering illnesses in the UK.”
Drax is committed to supporting the communities local to its operations. It has invested more than £840,000 to support its customers and local communities since the start of the Covid-19 crisis.
ENDS
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About Drax
Drax Group’s purpose is to enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future and in 2019 announced a world-leading ambition to be carbon negative by 2030, using Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) technology.
Its 3,400 employees operate across three principal areas of activity – electricity generation, electricity sales to business customers and compressed wood pellet production and supply to third parties.
For more information visit www.drax.com/uk
Power generation:
Drax owns and operates a portfolio of renewable electricity generation assets in England and Scotland. The assets include the UK’s largest power station, based at Selby, North Yorkshire, which supplies five percent of the country’s electricity needs.
Having converted Drax Power Station to use sustainable biomass instead of coal it has become the UK’s biggest renewable power generator and the largest decarbonisation project in Europe. It is also where Drax is piloting the groundbreaking negative emissions technology BECCS within its CCUS (Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage) Incubation Area.
Its pumped storage, hydro and energy from waste assets in Scotland include Cruachan Power Station – a flexible pumped storage facility within the hollowed-out mountain Ben Cruachan.
Pellet production and supply:
Drax owns and has interests in 17 pellet mills in the US South and Western Canada which have the capacity to manufacture 4.9 million tonnes of compressed wood pellets (biomass) a year. The pellets are produced using materials sourced from sustainably managed working forests and are supplied to third party customers in Europe and Asia for the generation of renewable power.
Drax’s pellet mills supply around 30% of the biomass used at its own power station in North Yorkshire, England to generate flexible, renewable power for the UK’s homes and businesses.
Customers:
Drax is the largest supplier of renewable electricity to UK businesses, supplying 100% renewable electricity as standard to more than 370,000 sites through Drax and Opus Energy.
It offers a range of energy-related services including energy optimisation, as well as electric vehicle strategy and management.
To find out more go to the website www.energy.drax.com
