A Bradford jewellery manufacturer has pledged to support the Burns Unit Appeal.
Myron Hunka, of Shipley, will give cash he receives from cleaning and polishing jewellery at his workshop in North Parade, Bradford to the campaign to save the city’s burns research unit from possible closure.
Bradford City Football Club and the Telegraph & Argus have teamed up with the aim of raising £100,000 for the burns unit by next May – the 25th anniversary of the Bradford City fire disaster which cost 56 lives and left almost 200 others injured.
Mr Hunka’s service, which costs about £3 per item, also includes checks for wear and tear.
He has run the bespoke jewellery-making business for 30 years with colleague Peter Hollings.
The pair held a similar scheme to raise about £300 for the pioneering research unit at Bradford University, which was set up in the aftermath of the Valley Parade tragedy in May 1985.
Mr Hunka said: “We used to have a shop in Godwin Street very close to the ground. When I went to collect my car on the day of the fire it was covered in smoke. There was smoke billowing everywhere.
“Some people used to come into the shop suffering from the after-affects of the fire so we were close to it in that way. At the time people were raising money for the burns unit and we wanted to do something too.
“As we had supported it before we wanted to do something again. It’s not much money to pay and it goes straight to the appeal.”
The Burns Unit Appeal follows a campaign by the Telegraph & Argus in 1995 which raised £105,000 and kept the unit running for another three years.
Money raised from the new appeal will be used to pay for two researchers for two years at the unit, which is based at the University’s school of bio-medical sciences.
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