MONEY from our Cash for Charities scheme could help pass on vital survival skills to people in York.

York Rescue Boat (YRB) would spend any money it won on its educational outreach programme, which often works with young people.

The York Rescue Boat and Hearing Dogs for Deaf People near Pocklington are two local charities battling it out for a share of £25,000 from our parent company’s charitable arm, The Gannett Foundation.

Readers can collect tokens in The Press for the charities - money will be allocated according to how many tokens each receive.

Collection points are located at: Morrisons, Foss Island, Road, YO31 7UR; Morrisons, 4 Front Street, Acomb, YO24 3BZ; Tesco, Stirling Road, Clifton Moor, YO30 4XZ; Co-op, 103-104 Hull Road, YO10 3LQ; Fishergate News, 32 Fishergate, YO10 4AB; Wigginton Village Stores, 64 The Village, YO32 2PS; Broadway News & PO, 44 Broadway, YO10 4JX, and Sainsburys, The Balk, Pocklington, YO42 2GG.

You can also post the coupons directly to: Readers Choice Cash Charity, York Press, 84-86 Walmgate, York, YO1 9YN.

The YRB says some of the money would go towards its education workshops which teach water safety to people of all ages in the city.

David Wilson is a volunteer with YRB and one of its trainers. He said water safety training was paramount and saved lives. He added: "York Rescue Boat has three aims - education, prevention and rescue. We would rather educate people to the danger of water or getting into trouble in a flood situation - if we can stop someone getting into trouble that is better"

The YRB delivers educational workshops to schools, colleges, and youth groups such as scouts cadets and universities. This year it has delivered eight workshops with around 620 participants. However, pre-Covid in 2019 volunteers delivered 41 workshops to 2,833 students.

Matthew Sellers, a YRB volunteer said: "Any cash raised would be used towards support equipment for our workshops, we are currently looking to purchase a portable PA system, laptops and projector including a screen to enable us to display multimedia presentations. We also require additional example rescue equipment including lifejackets and throwlines. In addition, we are in the process of purchasing a vehicle to help our volunteers in delivering our workshops across the community."

He added the workshops were important because "sadly see a number of tragedies across the UK each year. By educating on the dangers open water can pose we hope to prevent avoidable tragedies".

He said the three most important messages to get across to the public regarding safety in the water are:

• Even strong swimmers can easily be caught out by the rivers temperature even in summer (from cold water shock)

• The river varies a lot in depth in places with many hidden dangers beneath the surface including plants and other objects you can easily become trapped in

• If you see someone in trouble or think there in trouble call 999 straight away asking for fire and rescue inland or the coastguard on the coast

YRB has 29 operational volunteer members with a further 18 in training and 13 fundraisers. It costs approximately £25,000 to run the service for a year and £1,000 to pay for the educational sessions.

Matthew urged Press readers to vote for YRB and said: "Please vote for York Rescue Boat. Drowning doesn't discriminate and the more workshops we can run we can hopefully reduce the number of preventable tragedies on Yorks rivers."

Gemma Wardle of Hearing Dogs for Deaf People also encouraged readers to vote for this good cause which helps the hearing impaired live with confidence. It costs £40,000 for each assistance dog.

Gemma added: "Hearing dogs not only alert deaf people to important and life-saving sounds, such as smoke alarms, alarm clocks and oven timers, they also provide lots of love, companionship and emotional support.

"Many deaf people can feel very lonely and isolated and our dogs not only help tackle this, they also can dramatically improve people’s mental wellbeing and quality of life overall."