Bring your bras to Bedford and raise money for charity!

• The ‘Bra Bank’ will be open for donations at Bedford station for three weeks - every Monday and Thursday from 09:00 – 12:00, starting Monday 16 August
• For every tonne of bras collected, Against Breast Cancer receives £700 to fund research
• Thameslink station assistant Susan Hall is bringing the initiative to Bedford station after discovering that charity shops and clothes banks wouldn’t accept bras

A new donation scheme launching at Bedford train station will give local residents the opportunity to recycle unwanted or unloved bras, helping to raise vital funds for pioneering breast cancer research.

The ‘Bra Bank’ will be open for donations at Bedford station every Monday and Thursday from 09:00 – 12:00, starting on Monday 16 August and ending on Thursday 2 September. The bras will then be collected by Against Breast Cancer, an organisation that funds research into new treatments, tools for earlier diagnosis and advice to reduce the risk of recurrence and secondary spread.

The initiative is being brought to the station by Thameslink employee, Susan Hall, who started to research bra recycling schemes after discovering that charity shops and clothes banks wouldn’t accept the item. That’s when she came across Against Breast Cancer.

Susan, who is a Station Assistant, said: “The statistics on how many cancers reoccur is very scary. That’s why the work of this charity is so important because they focus on increasing the survival rate of all breast cancer patients. Like many others, I’ve had various family members affected by cancer but thankfully the disease hasn’t returned, and they are still in remission.

“I feel scared every time my parents go back to oncology for check-ups and I dread to think what’s it’s like to hear the news that it’s come back and you have to start the battle all over again. Against Breast Cancer researches the secondary causes of breast cancer, in the hope that women only have to fight the disease once.”

For every tonne of bras collected, Against Breast Cancer receives £700 to fund research. In addition to this, the items collected from Bedford’s new ‘Bra Bank’ will help to support small businesses in Africa, part of a textile recovery project. This prevents bras going into landfill and gives them a new lease of life in developing countries such as Togo, Ghana and Kenya, where bras remain too expensive to produce locally.

To find our more about bra recycling schemes by Against Breast Cancer, visit: Bra Recycling - Against Breast Cancer.

The ‘Bra Bank’ comes to Bedford station every Monday and Thursday for three weeks, beginning on 16 August until 2 September.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

• Against Breast Cancer funds pioneering research into new treatments, tools for earlier diagnosis and advice to reduce the risk of recurrence and secondary spread.
• Working with expert scientists, the charity wants to increase the survival rates of all breast cancer patients and ultimately, discover a vaccine against breast cancer.
• For more information email info@againstbreastcancer.org.ukor call 01235534211