St. John?s Ambulance Brigade is appealing to the public to help raise funds toward the running costs of the ambulances and the organisation in general.

Volunteers will be collecting at banks, supermarkets and at Lindos in Warwick today and tomorrow they will be collecting at out of town at supermarkets.

St. John?s Ambulance executive director Jacqueline Browne and deputy chair Franz Egenolf said it costs about $200 an hour to run the ambulances.

Mr. Egenolf said many sporting organisations, event organisers and the general public do not realise that the organisation is a charity and that the workers are volunteers and the Brigade needs assistance.

He said: ?Some sporting bodies will give us a donation and some just conveniently forget about it.?

Ms Browne said the day to day running costs far exceed the grant they receive from Government.

?We do get a small grant from Government, but we do have far, far greater expenses, simply because the insurance alone for ambulances is about $11,000 for the year of 2004.?