THE Exeter, Mid and East Devon Samaritans is celebrating a fund-raising success thanks to twin sisters who have collected over £10,000 over the past seven years.

Sally Percival has been a Samaritans volunteer for 29 years and in 2009 took charge of organising the branch’s street and supermarket collections, recruiting her sister Susan to help in the process.

There are 14 collections a year across the area covered by the Exeter, Mid and East Devon branch of the charity; several different volunteers help during each individual collection but Sally and Susan have been stalwarts for seven years.

‘As a charity, Samaritans relies entirely on donations from the public. There are no grants or funding from local or central government, so it’s down to us to ask people to contribute what they can,’ said Helen Crossfield, director of the local branch.

In the past year the local branch handled over 42,000 individual contacts from members of the public, mostly through telephone calls but also in the form of emails, SMS texts and face-to-face meetings at the branch premises in central Exeter.

Helen said: ‘We obviously have premises and equipment to maintain, so contributions from the public are vital. We receive around £6,000 per year through street and supermarket collections and that’s down to volunteers who give their time.

‘During the past seven years we estimate Sally and Susan have collected at least £10,000 in total - a remarkable achievement and we’re hugely grateful. If anyone wants to do the same, we’d be delighted to hear from them.’

Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year. It provides a safe place for anyone struggling to cope, whoever they are, however they feel, whatever life has done to them.