Charity Support Page
Each year we support a wide variety of local, national and international charities via donation, sponsorship or providing stock for charitable events.
Below are details of fundraising events held and the fantastic charities Puckator support.
Driving the Silk Road - From Xiamen to Cornwall for Save The Children
This July and August Puckator's Managing Director Mark Howard went on a big adventure! He drove a BMW X3 from Xiamen, China to our head office in Liskeard, Cornwall to raise funds for Save the Children, an international charity which believes that all children around the world deserve a future. In times of crisis Save the Children is among the first to respond, and usually the last to leave, ensuring that children are kept safe and their needs are met at times when they are most vulnerable.
The title of this epic journey was Driving the Silk Road, and Mark traveled through China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, France and finally the UK. With over 14,000 km (8,700 miles) of roads behind him, this was not only an opportunity to raise funds for such a worthy cause as Save the Children but also was a once in a lifetime experience. You can read more on Mark's blog Driving the Silk Road.
Mark arrived back to a very wet Cornish welcome on the 28th of August.
On Monday 23th of September, Save the Children South West came in to present Mark with a certificate thanking him for the £14,788 raised during his adventure. We took the opportunity for a photoshoot but yet again it was pouring with rain so we headed indoors for the photo.
Mark is already planning another charity drive in 2021, but before that in 2020 we will be celebrating our 30th Anniversary year with more charity events and promotions being planned.
A massive thank you to everyone who supported and donated to Mark and Puckator throughout his trip Driving the Silk Road. We look forward to supporting Save the Children and other charities again very soon.
Sterts Arts and Environmental Centre
Sterts is a performing arts theatre, and the home of Moorland Theatre, based in Liskeard very near the Puckator head office and distribution centre. Located in a canopy-covered natural moorland amphitheatre, Sterts offers a unique opportunity to experience drama and musical productions with community involvement in a stunning open-air setting.
The shows that we are sponsoring at Sterts this year are:
West End to Broadway
Familiar songs from your favourite musicals along with gorgeous melodies from some lesser know shows. Lyrical ballads, traditional and contemporary musical theatre numbers from both well-known and lesser known composers. This fantastic show features musical theatre at its best.
And Then There Were None
A dramatic adaptation of the best-selling crime novel by Agatha Christie. The story follows 10 strangers who receive an unusual invitation to a solitary mansion based remotely off Britain's Devon Coast. Among the guests is an unstable doctor, an anxious businessman, an irresponsible playboy, and a governess with a secret. Cut off from the outside world, the group arrives at its destination, only to find that darkness awaits them. As people start to mysteriously die, the members of the group realize there is a killer among them.
A Bunch of Amateurs
Hollywood descends on a local am-dram society in sleepy England with hilarious consequences as acting worlds collide. When a washed-up Hollywood Star is deceived by his agent into playing King Lear in an amateur community production in a small English town. Expecting a suite at a fancy hotel, the actor finds himself lodging in a bed and breakfast. But, among the enthusiastic locals, he slowly comes to rethink some of his assumptions and look at life in a whole new way.
Liskeard's Lights Up & Santa's Train
Liskeard will be celebrating Christmas in a traditional Cornish way again this year with a very special Lights Up including a Christmas party, a wild hunt, a children’s trail around town and a chance for everyone to learn a bit of Cornish, singing and dancing.
Again this year, Puckator has donated small gifts for the Cornish Christmas Santa Train event that is a community event being provided as part of the Nadelik Lyskerrys event on Thursday 28th and Friday 29th November
Join the festive fun on the Looe Valley railway branch line. Children and their families can meet Santa, speak some Cornish and receive a small gift.
Leaves Liskeard at 16.41
Leaves Looe at 17.15
Meet Santa on the festive train, a small free gift for each child!
Bring a pound to work day
When you are seriously sick or injured, minutes matter. We're trying to help Cornwall Air Ambulance raise £2.5m to bring a faster and bigger air ambulance helicopter to Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly by 1 April 2020. Read more about the mission, here.
To do this, we held "Bring A Pound To Work Day" on October 11th - well, we had ‘Bring a cake to work day’ – because you know how much we like our cakes!! We raised an amazing £102.36, which Puckator matched, making a total of £204.72!!
Cornwall Hospice Care
Cornwall Hospice Care relies on the support of the community to help continue to provide the services it does to people facing terminal illness. It costs over £5million each year to run our specialist services and only 19% of this comes from government bodies so without the support of the community helping to raise the remaining £4+ million we would not be able to provide this care. Not only does our support help fund their clinical teams at 2 hospices, Mount Edgcumbe and St Julia's, it also helps to fund their community outreach initiatives including the neighbourhood hubs, providing support to families at a time and location with is best suited to them and also help support the outpatient services and the 24hr support line for other healthcare professionals.
Cornwall Hospice Care have been given the opportunity to run the Santa's grotto at this years Charlestown Christmas market in aid of their charity. This will be held on the 23rd and 24th November at Penrice School, Charlestown Road, St Austell and Puckator has donated some awesome gifts for this event.
Lostwithiel School Association
A charity raising funds for Lostwithiel School towards improving the Forest School element of the school and Puckator donated gifts and toys for their Santa's Grotto - an event that is going to be held on the 19th December and is throughly enjoyed by all the children many of who only get to visit Santa at school.
Crisps packets collection for the Firefighters Charity
As you probably remember the uproar in the news last year about the 30 year old empty crisp packet that was found on a Cornish Beach, unfortunately several more crisp packet of a similar age have been found since! This is rather worrying as crisp packets do not degrade quickly and cannot be recycled in the normal recycling, this is because they're made from a "metallised plastic film". Although the inside of a crisp packet is shiny and looks like aluminium foil, it is actually plastic. Since then Walkers Crisps with Terracycle Recycling have instigated a recycling scheme, where they recycle empty crisp packets and turn them into plastic pellets, which are then transformed into park benches, plant pots, watering cans and cool bags.
We have been collecting empty crisp packets now for nearly a year and earlier this year we donated over 1,000 to an ex member of staff who collects them to raise money for Cancer Research. On the 15th of October we took a big bag full to our local Community Fire Station, where they are collecting them for the Firefighters Charity which supports injured firefighters and bereaved families.