Buckingham Garden Centre have been giving money from every purchase of their cut Christmas trees to Ripple Africa charity. The centre has pledged to give 50p for every tree sold, which pays for TWO trees planted in Malawi.
Founder Geoff Furber spoke to Bucks Radio about the Ripple Africa charity, and how Buckingham Garden Centre are helping them change lives in Malawi.
"We (Geoff and his wife Liz) started the charity about 18 years ago and when we started we got involved with education and healthcare, but we saw all round the country there was terrible deforestation, so I wanted to do something about it.
"We started off with a very small tree nursery with about 5000 trees, the following year we got 50,000 trees, the key thing we wanted was for individual farmers to grow the trees, now we have lots of farmers growing trees, about 2 million trees a year, and to date we have planted about 17 millions trees."
Geoff told us about how the charity started:
"We were travelling through Malawi and we took a wrong turning, we ended up at a backpackers lodge, and it was for sale, so we ended up buying it! We wanted to help the local people and that's how it started!"
He had some kind words for Buckingham Garden Centre:
"Thanks to Buckingham Garden Centre for backing us, this is the second year now and its brilliant, and the more people that can find about us the better!"
Ripple Africa's Christmas campaign:
* To donate £5 to plant 20 trees text: XMASTREE to 70970
* To donate £10 to plant 40 trees text: XMASTREE to 70191
Website: https://rippleafrica.org
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