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HELP's New Office Is Officially Opened

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Gemma Quinn / 2006-03-20 11:00:43

"It is a great pleasure to be here and we are very proud that HELP have decided to base itself here in our town. We will do everything we can to protect and help this association." The words of the Mayor of San Miguel de Salinas, Angel Sáez Huertas, as he was joined by British Consul Russell Thompson in opening the new HELP Vega Baja office.

After securing the premises last August the office was officially inaugurated last Tuesday morning as dozens of supporters and sponsors gathered to wish them well. Press officer June Saunders said it could not have been done without the help and skills of Mark Day and his team of builders from Quesada who transformed the two garages, "We knocked out the middle wall ourselves and then Mark came along. I said a little prayer and along he came and we've never looked back from then and through the support of the papers people kept coming forward and helping and just last week a kitchen was donated."

HELP had helped Mark's friend and in return he wanted to help them and when a job was postponed he took his team to the site to start work. After initially only intending to be working for a few days to get them started Mark has seen the project through from start to finish.

The centre is ideally located serving the local community and the wider Vega Baja area acting as the main office for holding the orthopaedic equipment which was previously stored wherever possible.

Once the Mayor and British Consul had entered the new centre it was down to John Saunders, president of HELP to show his appreciation for all the volunteers who have worked tirelessly over the past months and to thank all the individuals, groups and businesses who donated items.

A cheque for 500€ was also handed over by John of Europa Network. With every new customer signing up to their phone network 20€ is being donated to HELP and with some 30,000 phone lines registered to ex-pats in Torrevieja, it is hopefully the start of good things to come and more donations to the invaluable charity.

The HELP Vega Baja office is situated in Calle Lope de Vega, 46, San Miguel de Salinas, call 966 723 733. HELP's Torrevieja office remains in Rambla Juan Mateo, 4. Call 965 704 282 for the 24 hour emergency help line.