I HOPE you are looking forward to and enjoying time with friends, family and fluffy companions over the New Year holidays.

Before the out-of-office email is turned on and the festivities begin, please can I ask you to do something extraordinary?

The international charity, Sightsavers has created a really handy calculator to work out how much you’ll earn in your last hour of 2019, and gives you the opportunity to gift it to help eliminate avoidable blindness.

What makes this even better is that up until January 9 the UK Government will match gifts from the UK public up to a total of £2 million, so your donation will go twice as far.

I’m an ambassador of Sightsavers and they are doing such wonderful work to fight a highly contagious blinding eye disease called trachoma.

Trachoma is a bacterial infection that makes your eyelids turn inwards until your eyelashes scrape against the surface of your eyes. Slowly, agonisingly, you go blind.

I have seen the devastating impact trachoma can have on whole communities, when I visited Sightsavers’ projects in Kenya.

Yet, trachoma can be treated with an antibiotic called Zithromax®, at a cost of as little as 15p per treatment. And £44 will pay for an operation to correct the in-turned eyelashes of someone with advanced trachoma.

It really is life-changing work. Sightsavers is aiming to wipe out this horrific disease in the countries they work in by 2025. This is the final push. Wouldn’t it feel amazing to know you helped achieve something so phenomenal?

So, please take a look at the calculator at www.sightsavers.org/lasthour and consider donating an hour’s pay.

LORRAINE KELLY,

Presenter and Sightsavers ambassador.