How Ionian and Aegean Island Holidays raised £20k for NHS scrubs

In the past two days more than £8,000 has been donated to an initiative co-founded by Ionian and Aegean Island Holidays’ Alexis Matsoukis.

The director and his friend Yani Zertalis have been dedicated to producing and delivering reusable scrubs to frontline NHS staff fighting coronavirus for a few weeks, and now that money raised for the cause stands at over £20,000 they’re showing no signs of slowing down.

“It’s a massive learning curve for us as a tour operator,” Matsoukis says. “We’ve had to learn very fast, and by the end of next week we will have produced and delivered close to 1,000 scrubs.”

MAKING THE MEANS

Zertalis was already laundering scrubs for his local Covid-19 medical centre (for free through his dry-cleaning business), but after teaming up with Matsoukis the pair have acquired a small rent-free factory space, eight socially distanced seamstresses and a large amount of fabric donated from fashion giants.

Generous contributions from travel industry friends including travel agents and the operator’s clients – one of which gave £1,000 – have made this possible.