Say hello to Cassian Christopher, our brand new Yutong coach raising awareness for Stem Cell donations in the UK

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Back in December we asked for nominations for local people to have one of our buses named after them. We received so many fantastic nominations that we have actually selected four nominations.

We are delighted to share the first name, proudly placed on our brand new Yutong midicoach, as “Cassian Christopher” with matching registration plate CA25 SAN.

Cassian is a local lad who attends nursery near our depot. He loves seeing our yellow buses go by! Cassian’s family nominated him not only for his love of our buses, but for a very special and admirable family story. It is their intention to use Cassian’s coach to raise awareness of the important role of stem cell donors in the UK.

Cassian’s grandfather Christopher (who Cassian's middle name is in honour of) suffered from Leukaemia and was sadly told that his intensive stint of chemotherapy had not been successful. Four years ago, Christoper was lucky enough to have a stem cell donation from his brother. When he relapsed the only match available for him was in Germany, however, he was too poorly to have another stem cell donation.

Cassian Christopher's name is proudly displayed on our new Yutong TC9 minicoach, with matching registration CA25SAN.

Christopher was always at the heart of his community and has been heavily involved in his local parish council, facilitating defibrillator installations in his local area, protesting damaging ancient woodland, developing a village winter fuel allowance and arranging a new children’s play area. He even helped police catch a thief leaving a supermarket with unpaid goods a number of years ago!

To assist with the families ongoing fundraising efforts, we have also made a £100 donation to DKMS UK. You can find out more about their work here: www.dkms.org.uk

In the UK, 30,000 new signups are now needed each year to boost the number of donors and reduce reliance on stem cell imports. You can find out more about becoming a stem cell donor here: https://www.blood.co.uk/stem-cell.../donating-stem-cells/

Along with the naming, a £100 charitable donation has been left to DKMS, the chosen charity of Cassian and Christopher's family