ROYAL British Legion volunteers have been helped in counting their 2014 Poppy Appeal donations by staff at Rochford District Council.
To save time counting the huge numbers of collected coins manually, the council loaned their cash counting machines for the task.
The count previously took one week to conduct but this year it took just one day to work out that £62,199.81 had been raised so far.
The money had been collected in high streets and shops around the Rochford district, Thundersley and Hadleigh but donations are still coming in and the grand total will be announced in due course.
Council leader Terry Cutmore said: “I’m delighted that we’re working with the Royal British Legion on the Poppy Appeal for the third year running.
“Volunteers from around the district work hard to collect vast amounts of money, and the assistance from Rochford District Council officers and their counting machine helps to save weeks of work.”
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