THE WHEELS are in motion for 12 months of record-breaking fundraising after Reading Buses unveiled its charity of the year.

The bus company’s staff will collect cash for The Alzheimer’s Society in 2015 following a host of activities and challenges which helped raise more than £9,000 for Reading’s homeless charity Launchpad.

More than 50 organisations applied to be this year’s partner, and a shortlist of five causes saw the dementia charity chosen as the overwhelming favourite by Reading Buses employees, who hope to beat the 2014 total.

As part of the partnership, a bus has been painted in the Alzheimer’s Society’s branding and will travel on all routes to help raise awareness.

Fiona Rackham, the charity’s community fundraiser for Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire, said: “We are extremely grateful to Reading Buses for promoting Alzheimer’s Society and choosing us as their charity of the year.

“As a charity, we rely on the generosity of individuals and businesses like Reading Buses to help us support people to live well with dementia today and fund research to find a cure for tomorrow.

“There are 1,148 people living with dementia in Reading and the bus will help raise awareness of the condition and the support available in the town. The bus is branded in our ‘Don’t bottle up’ campaign and will cover all the main routes throughout Reading and therefore will really help to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s Society locally.

“The Reading Dementia Action Alliance aims to address the isolation that many people living with dementia can feel. It’s vital that people living with dementia should still be able to enjoy all Reading has to offer.”

Reading Buses chief executive Martijn Gilbert believes the charity is the right choice as many people’s lives are touched in one way or another by dementia.

He said: “We are hugely excited to announce this partnership for 2015. Alzheimer’s Society is a great charity that does marvellous work in our community, helping people who have dementia.

“The work of the society also aligns to our ongoing customer awareness initiatives with staff and the work of the Dementia Action Alliance to make Reading a dementia friendly town.

“This is an initiative that we have supported for some time and recognise the role that our staff and bus services have to play in making this possible.

“We are proud to be able to help Alzheimer’s Society raise their profile even more in and around Reading and to try and target raising a record amount for them – something that we believe we can do.”

Caroline Anscombe, the company’s HR director, added: “We already had members of staff coming up with exciting fundraising ideas before we even got to the official announcement. We look forward to working with the charity and to a successful 2015.”