Charity launches people to help wish list

The founder of East Renfrewshire Good Causes — a charity which funds and facilitates good deeds for the area’s most in need — has come up with a new way to make Christmas special for the many people the organisation helps.

ERGC has made up a wish list of good causes needing done, and how much it will cost to fund them.

Russell — who founded the charity in 2007 as a way of giving back after a life-saving double transplant — is appealing to readers to “love their neighbours” this festive period.

He told The Extra: “Let’s pull together to show we care about the less fortunte, sometimes housebound (and almost invisible to the outside world) members of our society.

“They may be living a few doors away in your own street — they may be people growing older, often accompanied by increasingly disability.

“The current wish list stands at around £15,000 worth of items that we have been unable to fund so far.

“It operates the same way as a wedding list; anyone can make a full donation towards one of the items, or they can offer part funding — whatever they can afford.”

He added: “Let’s give our frontline workers the additional goods that their clients need this Christmas.”

Russell, who is registered blind, managed to overcome his own illness, type 1 diabetes, following life-changing kidney and pancreas transplants — and as well as running the charity,and his own business, he is a keen supporter of organ donation campaigns.

Along with wife Yvonne and kind-hearted volunteers, Russell’s Good Causes has helped over 1,000 people in six years.

Cheques for anything on the wish list above — or general donations — can be posted to ER Good Causes, 8 Blackfarm Road, Newton Mearns G77 5HT.

For more information, contact Russell on 639 8230.

More on the charity — including more wish list items — can be found at the East Ren Good Causes website.

The ER Good Causes wish list includes:

— Child who requires home adaptations and specialist equipment for comfort, to allow hospital discharge — £250

— Adult with mental health problems requires a home repair to make it secure, to enable admission to hospital for treatment — £100

— Adult with MS need wheelchair power pack to allow them to go out with their

family, instead of being housebound — £735

— Adult homeless person needs a selection of second hand furniture to take up residence in empty council flat — £100

— Mother of a young autistic child needs help getting to nursery. Pre-paid bus tickets could be used — £200

— Isobel Mair school pupil with autism and speech problems needs iPad to communicate and interact — £400.

— Single parent with kids requires an electric shower because one child’s medical condition makes baths impractical — £67

— Pensioner with Parkinsons and dementia needs a riser and recliner chair to enable spouse to care for them at home —

£800

— Young carer who looks after single parent with disabilities requires a laptop for school work — £299

— Adult wheelchair user needs repairs in order to use wet floor shower area — £197