Midlands Simon boosted by KMK Metals Christmas lights recycling appeal
The Midlands Simon Community has been financially boosted by €856 following a 25% increase in the amount of Christmas lights recycled through KMK Metals Recycling’s annual appeal.
Shoppers were encouraged to drop off their old and broken Christmas lights to shopping centres in Athlone, Tullamore and Mullingar throughout December and January and for every set of Christmas lights recycled, KMK Metals Recycling made a donation to the Midlands Simon Community. In total, 400kg of Christmas lights cable was collected for recycling, up 100kg on the previous year and the company rounded up the value of the recycled material to €500.
A bucket collection from a free family fun day held in the Bridge Centre in Tullamore to promote the campaign, yielded a further €356, bringing the total to €856.
Managing Director of KMK Metals Recycling, Max Kyck, said: “The Christmas lights recycling campaign is very important to us as it raises much-needed money and awareness for the Midlands Simon Community. It’s brilliant to see the recycling weights continuing to increase year on year as apart from helping a very worthwhile charity, people are helping the environment by recycling cable that contains precious resources. The family fun event that we trialled in the Bridge Shopping Centre proved to be a great success and was very well-received. This is something we would like to build on for next year.”
Since 2015, KMK Metals Recycling has been running their Christmas lights recycling campaign, starting out with just the Bridge Centre in Tullamore, before expanding to include Golden Island Shopping Centre Athlone andHarbour Place Shopping Centre in Mullingar.
Midlands Simon Community offers many services to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, to help get them back on their feet as quickly as possible. The charity offers services and support to people in the Midlands region of Offaly, Westmeath, Laois and Longford and aims to help users of the service to rebuild their lives and move out of homelessness into a permanent home.