Royal Flying Doctor Service Receives Lifesaving Equipment From OTR
In less than a year since launching, OTR is proud to announce that their OTRGive program has reached a milestone of the 25,000th customer linking to the innovative community program generating over $107,000 in donations from OTR to South Australian community groups.
The 25,000th customer, Mandy Corrie, was ordering her daily coffee from OTR Fulham when a staff member encouraged her to link up to the innovative community giving program that sees OTR donate a percentage of customer sales to over 30 great causes.
OTR customer Mandy Corrie chose the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) which resulted in OTR generously donating a special one-off donation of $25,000 to the community group on Mandy’s behalf.
“We recently had an incident in Mannum where my son Caylen, 9, needed urgent medical attention. It made me step back and think about remote areas of Australia, and what happens when people there need critical medical help. That really resonated with me, and I think the RFDS offers an incredible service to help so many people.”
“It is amazing that OTR donated the $25,000 on my behalf. I’m so blessed and humbled that I played a small part – by just clicking a button on my phone – in making sure that anyone who goes on an RFDS aircraft has access to the best equipment to save their lives.” Ms Corrie concluded.
The $25,000 cheque was presented to RFDS Central Operations CEO Tony Vaughan, ASM, on the organisation’s 91st birthday, 15 May 2019. He explained the support of the community is so important to its life-saving work, now airlifting 355,000 Australians across the country every year after flying just 245 patients in its first year of 1928.
“The RFDS relies on bequests, sponsorships and donations from the community to meet the shortfall in our operational funding. That’s why community initiatives such as OTRGive are so important to the RFDS; to help keep our crews in the air for the thousands of patients we assist every year,” Mr Vaughan said.
Mr Vaughan said the $25,000 donation from OTR had been directed to purchase a new iSTAT Analyser – a portable blood analyser which will enable their crews to make informed clinical decisions and enhance care of patients in their flying intensive care units.
OTR CEO Warren Wilmot said, “We personally chose RFDS as one of the community groups because we have 35 regional OTR stores across the state and it is important to us that our staff and customers in country areas have access to life-saving medical services.”
“OTRGive is such an important initiative that is helping community groups across South Australia receive much-needed funds to continue their incredible work. We encourage our OTR customers to join our 25,000th customer, Mandy Corrie, in linking to the OTRGive program via the OTR App so that we can keep growing donations. It’s our goal to contribute as much as possible so that this uncapped program can continue making a real difference to the community” Mr Wilmot concluded.