A Dundee businessman has donated a delivery van to help disadvantaged children in the city.
Gary Rooney, who runs BIG Recovery and Transportation, presented the van to Help for Kids at the charity’s toy grotto in DC Thomson’s Kingsway building on Wednesday.
The van, complete with Help for Kids Christmas branding and a personalised HFK license plate, will also be free of any maintenance costs.
Stacey Wallace, the charity’s manager, said the gift will allow her team to deliver items to families across Tayside.
Help for Kids van donation will help charity as ’emergency service for families’
She said: “We have never had our own transport and we have started finding that we need something daily.
“We are so grateful for this and it will help us massively.
“We see ourselves as an emergency service for families.
“Anything a family needs we can get for them and now with a van we can do it on the same day or the next day.
“The van will be used throughout the year for drop-offs. It will be used daily to provide not only family requests but also to pick up donations.
“It is going to make a massive difference.”
The van was also delivered full of toys for the Help for Kids Christmas toy appeal.
Dundee FC stars lent a hand at the toy grotto earlier this month after the charity collected donations outside Dens Park.
Gary, an ambassador for Help for Kids, told The Courier: “I thought they were needing us to pick stuff up for them a lot and we had not used our advertising budget for the year so we used it to buy the van.
“Because I have worked alongside the charity I knew what they needed.
“Stacey had said before if they were to buy a van it would be money out of the pot for the kids.
“She was using her own car which is a selfless thing to be doing.”
Help for Kids manager ‘burst into tears’ after delivery van donation
Gary says the van was supposed to be a surprise but he was forced to tell Stacey as the financing company needed to verify the charity.
He said: “I phoned and told Stacey because I thought it could sound like it was a scam.
“She burst into tears. She was also in tears when we dropped it off.”
Abertay Signs and Designs decorated the van free of charge – and has promised to redo the decals whenever the charity wants – while Tannadice Motors will provide any maintenance for free.
Gary added: “Help for Kids is 100% local, we have done charity work in the past where we haven’t seen where the money is going.
“With them we know it is going to families in Dundee, Angus or Perth and Kinross.
“That is a big thing for me.”
Conversation