My charity of the week is Wiltshire Search and Rescue, a brilliant voluntary specialist search and rescue team, made up of over seventy members, which exists to find vulnerable and missing people.
Based locally, volunteers are trained to the UK Lowland Rescue National Standards and fulfil the same role as Mountain Rescue, Coastguard Rescue, and the RNLI. They work closely with all the emergency services in Wiltshire and support neighbouring Search and Rescue teams. Volunteers from WILSAR are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Last year, Wiltshire Search and Rescue were deployed a total of sixty-one times, assisting with High Risk Missing Persons on fifty-three occasions.
The team also ran 299 training sessions lasting 1,965 hours, covering dozens of disciplines and specialisms including four-by-four driving, missing person behaviour, helicopter winch training, and casualty care. As well as callouts and exercises, volunteers also attended 459 other events lasting 1,930 hours to keep the charity running, including fundraising activities, Management Committee meetings, and maintenance of vehicles and equipment.
Wiltshire Search & Rescue are a non-profit making organisation and rely on their own fundraising, along with donations, grants, and sponsorship from the public and companies. All of their members are unpaid volunteers, and they make no charge for their services.
To find out how you can support Wiltshire Search and Rescue, or to learn more about volunteering, please visit https://www.wilsar.org.uk/fundraising/
You can also follow Wiltshire Search and Rescue on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/wilsarteam
And on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/WiltshireSAR
