Post by: IVHQ may be the world’s largest volunteer travel company, but we’re based in a small town here in New Zealand and supporting local community initiatives is important to us.
One of the local charities we support with annual donations is the Taranaki Rescue Helicopter Trust - the charity responsible for providing an emergency helicopter service for the Taranaki region. On Friday, the IVHQ team were privlidged to a tour of the hangar and the opportunity to meet the hard-working crew behind the charity.
Alongside the spectacular surf and wicked walkways, the Taranaki region is renowned for our iconic mountain and prominent farming industry, and those scaling the mountain or working on the farm can find themselves in difficult-to-reach destinations if accidents strike. Fortunately, the Taranaki Rescue Helicopter Trust provides our local community with an efficient, life-saving air rescue service and serves as a vital emergency resource for the region.
As our Executive Director Dan Radcliffe comes from a farming background (he even launched the IVHQ website from his family farm - see the History of IVHQ), the Radcliffe family has always donated to the Trust and this is a charity that all members of IVHQ are highly supportive of.
We were very grateful for the opportunity to tour the Taranaki Rescue Helicopter hangar and naturally, we were full of questions for the crew, some of which we thought you may be interested in knowing the answers to…
How many call outs do you have per year? Around 200 to 250
How much does the helicopter cost to run? Around NZ$3,000 per hour
How many people have you helped? Over 4,000 people
What do you do when you’re not on a job? Admin!
Following our visit to the hangar, the IVHQ team were out and about planting trees in New Plymouth to offset our carbon emissions from flying to visit our volunteer abroad programs. See IVHQ Carbon Offsetting for the full story.
