It has been a tremendous few months for AvailableCar in terms of their fundraising efforts for their chosen charity, Rainbows Children’s Hospice. Team Members from both of their supermarket sites in Castle Donington and Sutton-In-Ashfield, have been running, cycling and even falling through the sky in a bid to raise as much money as possible for the hospitals ‘Building for the future’ campaign!

So far, a fantastic figure of £10,175 has been raised, which is a build-up of six months hard work and exertion by various team members. Activities have included fun runs, marathons, sponsored cycle rides, raffles, customer donations and even sky diving.

AvailableCar Chairman Graham Bell has personally led his team on two marathons, including the Mansfield Half Marathon and the Great North Run, successfully raising more than £1,242. Four very brave team members also took part in the 'Jump for Rainbows' tandem sky dive only a few weeks ago, which raised more than £1,690.

One of the team who took part was Tracey Kendall Administration Manager at AvailableCar she said: "It was one of the best experiences of my life taking part in the Rainbows sky dive with my team mates, it was totally exhilarating and a fantastic way to get sponsorship. Thanks to family, friends and work colleagues we have now made a significant contribution towards our fundraising target of £12,000 by Christmas."

Children and young people from across the whole of the East Midlands go to the Rainbows Hospice with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions for specialist respite stays, symptom management, palliative and end-of-life care. Their families too, are supported and helped by Rainbows on their difficult journey.

Patricia Brookes Director of Fundraising at Rainbows Children's Hospice said: "It was great news to hear that Rainbows was chosen as AvailableCar's charity. We really appreciate all the hard effort put in by their employees over the last few months and we have been greatly impressed by the variety of activities they have got involved with since they started their fundraising campaign £10,175 is a fantastic donation which will go towards our 'Building for the Future' project, that relies entirely on fundraising and donations such as this one. Thanks once again to all the team and customers involved."

Organisers plan to keep activities going so that by the end of the year they will have a substantial contribution towards the £4 million needed to create additional bedrooms and new-care facilities.

Over the last few months customers have also been helping the busy supermarket sites raise money by generously adding on a pound or two to their car purchase in-store. So far over £5,673 has been raised by customers and the figure is rising week on week.

AvailableCar have promised to support Rainbows for the next year in a bid to raise as much money as possible and promote its worth-while cause to their customers, which mainly span across Derby, Nottingham, Leicester and Yorkshire.

The next activity for the supermarket will be to join forces with Smooth FM in their 'Bring a pound to work day'.