Street Assist Edinburgh has hailed their fundraising campaign a success after an anonymous donor gave £1,600 which means that the charity can now afford a new van.
Neil Logan, the founder and director of Street Assist, had launched the campaign last year as their existing Patient Transport Vehicle was looking a tad worse for wear.
The charity uses the vehicle to transport night goers that have become vulnerable - for whatever reason - back to Street Assist HQ for treatment, to their home or to the hospital for further treatment.
But the current vehicle had accrued over 190,000 miles and the repairs were said to be too expensive to justify being carried out.
So a campaign was launched to find a new vehicle. And the target for this campaign was over the weekend following a number of articles from Edinburgh Live detailing the campaign and the great work that Street Assist carry out.
On this, Neil said: “The three news items on Street Assist were amazing and on Friday and Saturday we did receive a good few donations on our Go Fund Me Page which took us to £3400.
“Then last night I got a donation notification which I had to look twice at as someone donated the remaining £1,600 we needed to get us to £5,000!!! Absolutely amazing and everyone at the project is delighted! So, today we are going to go and see some new vehicles!!”
Street Assist as an organisation provides welfare and first aid to those who become vulnerable during the busy night time economy hours.
They deliver their service every Friday and Saturday from 10pm to 4am and work closely with the council, CCTV, NHS and emergency services.
It is understood that the charity saves the taxpayer thousands of pounds each time they respond to a call and since their inception they have saved over £3.2million for taxpayers.
On this topic, Neil had earlier said: “It costs around £500 for officers to babysit someone that is intoxicated and if we can be there then it frees up cost and they can go deal with other issues. We can also take on a duty of care as the cost of an ambulance, its paramedics and a bed in A&E to sleep off a hangover is about £2,500. So if we are able to administer first aid and get them home safely then we are saving the taxpayer money.
“All in all we have saved close to £3.2m for the taxpayer through our services. We found this out after doing a study to break down the cost benefits and savings that our care brings. We do all this on a £20,000 a year budget.
“Our project contributes to a significant saving on time, resources and money to the public purse.”
During the three part series Live explored the charity's fundraising campaig n to secure a new Patient Transport Vehicle.
As well as this we explored the story of a volunteer named Amanda that had been motivated to secure a career change to become an ambulance technician after volunteering with the charity.
We also spent a night with the team as they responded to vulnerable people on Edinburgh’s streets with two students assisted with alcohol related issues and returned home safely - saving the public purse thousands in the process.
To follow the work of Street Assist, please visit their website here or their Facebook here.
