Plucky Harrogate friends pledge full body wax to raise funds for Harrogate District Hospital and key workers

Gareth Grant and Ryan Kirby have already raised more than £1,300 for supplies such as gloves, face masks, hand sanitiser, antibacterial wipes and hand cream, and their goal is to reach a whopping £2,000 before they step up to do the challenge on April 11 - which will be a full wax, except their eyebrows (their wives specified this!)

Gareth said: “Having had both my children at Harrogate hospital, plus various admissions as a family, we have always felt very lucky to have such incredible healthcare in our area. Now with this pandemic we want to do everything we can to help and support them.

“We owe them everything, and I hope once this is all over they receive the recognition they deserve. It must be terrifying when the country is being told to stay home and isolate to save lives, but you must still go face it head on.

“I hope and pray that once we come out the other side of this crazy time, it is the small acts of kindness that are remembered. Myself, my wife and our children stood outside in the cold and cheered as loud as we could for our care workers and NHS staff.

“Feeling the whole country unite to say thank you was an emotional moment. If we could take that feeling forward and channel it into acts of kindness up and down the country we will come through this together.”

To add to Gareth and Ryan’s total, visit: justgiving.com/crowdfunding/thebigshavefornhsandkeyworkers.

Gareth is working in partnership with the Supplies for Key Workers in and around Harrogate Facebook group, which is gaining even more momentum with scores of residents and businesses clambering to make donations.

The group is about supporting all Harrogate hospital staff - from the frontline surgeons, A&E teams, doctors and nurses, to ambulance teams, cleaners, porters, and front of house teams who all play a critical and much-valued role in keeping the public safe.

But the group is also there to help our district’s amazing care workers, community nurses, and any other key workers in Harrogate who make such a huge difference to people’s lives all year round, and even more so in times of crisis.

Julie Mills, who runs Julie Scrumptious cakes and bakes on Devonshire Place, was moved to launch the appeal with friend Fiona Ryan when she saw heartbreaking stories emerging of healthcare workers finding supermarket shelves stripped bare at the end of long and difficult shifts.

Julie said: “The support has been phenomenal - every little thing has helped, and gone to someone who has needed it. Even if you can’t go out, you can still make a massive difference to someone from your armchair. People want to help in their own way, they don’t want to be doing nothing while they’re off work or sat at home, they don’t want to be just taking. People really want to give back.

“We need these supplies now, our key workers need stuff to keep them going through each and every shift. People need to help us help them, it’s urgent. This is only going to get bigger and snowball very soon.”

Click here to visit the appeal's Facebook group.