Full speed ahead for Andy’s thanks to generous Tesla owners

Patients at Andy’s, the children’s unit at St Andrew’s Hospice in Grimsby, are enjoying life in the fast lane thanks to a generous donation from UK owners of Tesla cars.

Tesla Owners’ UK have donated a RadioFlyer scale Tesla electric toy car to Andy’s, as part of their campaign to provide one of the cars to each children’s hospice and hospital.

The Tesla Owners’ UK group have even had an endorsement from Tesla co-founder Elon Musk and RadioFlyer themselves through Twitter.

Will Fealey, President of Tesla Owners’ UK explained how the donations are made.

He said: “The cars are given as a referral prize when an existing Tesla owner refers a new owner to Tesla.

“You receive one of the toy cars whether you have a child or not.

“As you can imagine, quite a lot of people who make referrals have no need for the car, so instead of selling them, we donate them to hospices and hospitals instead.”

And the campaign has quickly gathered pace on social media and through a JustGiving fundraiser that is asking for donations to purchase further cars.

Will continued: “We have had 29 cars pledged by Tesla owners – the RadioFlyer versions retail at £666, so that is a total of over £22,000 pledged already.

“I will be donating 13 cars at full price to the fund, and we have been given a heavily reduced rate on a further 25 cars.

“Tesla Owners’ UK has donated two cars from club funds and 66 members have pledged their future referral toy cars to the scheme.

“And for every mini Tesla car worth of funds donated to our online fundraiser, we have match funding, so 50 cars pledged equals 100 cars ordered!”

The support does not end there, with haulage firms and warehouses offering their services for storage, transport and delivery of the cars.

Tracy Wilson is Children’s Activities and Play Coordinator at Andy’s and she is overwhelmed with the donation.

“We get some fantastic donations at the hospice but I don’t think we have ever had anything like this before,” she said.

“The children absolutely love the car and they wanted to be in it and driving around straight away!”

For more information on the Tesla Owners’ UK club, please visit their website: https://teslaownersgroup.co.uk/.