HOPE MS Therapy Centre’s 30th anniversary year has begun with the news that the organisation has been voted Valero Pembroke Refinery’s ‘Charity of the Year’ for 2016.

To mark the start of this new relationship - where Valero’s ‘Charity of the Year’ receives a special focus from Pembroke Refinery’s community engagement, volunteering and fundraising activities - refinery public affairs manager Stephen Thornton visited HOPE to present them with a cheque for £1,000.

The HOPE Centre in Honeyborough, Neyland, provides support to those people in Pembrokeshire with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and related neurological diseases, as well as improving the wellbeing of sufferers, their friends and family, not least through hyper-baric oxygen therapy at the centre’s own baro-chamber as well as HOPE’s physiotherapy department.

Set up in 1986 as a registered charity, over 1,000 people every year make use of HOPE’s oxygen therapy treatment and around 2,300 physiotherapy sessions take place annually.

Speaking after the cheque presentation, Stephen Thornton said: “The refinery has a long history of support for local good causes, and by giving the entire workforce here a say in deciding our ‘Charity of the Year’ we are able to involve everyone at the refinery in channelling some of that support towards organisations close to all our hearts. It is an absolute pleasure that this year’s chosen charity is HOPE MS Therapy Centre, which does such vital work providing much needed help and care for people with neurological conditions like MS in Pembrokeshire.”

HOPE Centre manager Rick Stanton said: “In this HOPE’s 30th anniversary year, we are absolutely delighted to have been chosen by the refinery workforces as Valero’s Charity of the Year for 2016. On behalf of everyone at HOPE, I would like to say a big thank you and we look forward to an amazing year of fundraising as the refinery’s ‘Charity of the Year’.