Devon shoppers have chosen Devon Air Ambulance to receive a £25k Tesco Centenary Grant.

The Tesco supermarket chain is marking its Centenary year with two special Bags of Help funding rounds, with a huge £100,000 funding pot in Devon.

The first of these special rounds concentrated on groups delivering health and wellbeing benefits. In first place, Devon Air Ambulance Trust has been awarded £25,000.

Darren Goodwin, Operations Manager at Devon Air Ambulance Trust, said:

We’re so grateful to receive this fantastic grant from Tesco and would like to thank them and all of their customers for choosing and voting for us. It really does mean a lot. Patient care and giving our patients the best possible outcome is at the heart of everything that we do. The £25,000 gift from Tesco will buy us an Intelligent Ventilator.  We do have ventilators on board, but this specialist mobile intensive care ventilator offers much more to our critical care team and is suitable for adults and children alike.

New technology means that our clinicians can take the decision to let the ventilator take over the breathing for patients who can breathe for themselves but are not doing so effectively enough to keep themselves stable. This equipment will enable us to treat an additional group of patients that we haven’t previously been able to treat effectively.

Bags of Help, run in partnership with the charity Groundwork, sees funding awarded to thousands of local community projects every year. So far in Devon, Bags of Help has awarded more than £2,500,000 to nearly 800 local projects.

Tesco grants amounting to £50,000 have been shared among several local charities whose work impacts the people of Devon.

If you would like to get involved in supporting Devon Air Ambulance this Christmas then we are currently running our It Takes A Community Christmas Appeal.