Since 2010 Aviva UK has been supporting Railway Children through their CSR programme Street to School. Railway Children are an international charity helping runaway children. Every year, in the UK alone, around 100,000 children – a third of who are under 12 years old – run away from home. Railway Children offers invaluable support to these street children, many of who find themselves living rough.
They say Christmas is a time for giving and it’s long been a Pret tradition to help feed the homeless at Christmas. This year they got into the spirit of the season in a really big way. With their ‘Really Big Christmas Dinner’ campaign they set themselves the ambitious target of raising £250,000 to provide hot meals, giving 5p from every sandwich sold to homeless charities. To ensure this worthy cause was destined for success we put Pret’s newly established digital and social media channels to work.
The Pret.com homepage was taken over and a live totaliser installed – whose tally rose rapidly once we’d emailed Pret’s loyal email base. Social media was always intended to be at the heart of our strategy. Both Twitter and Facebook quickly became hotbeds of campaign news, messages of support and live total milestones. Midway through the campaign, supporters were encouraged to add a ‘Twibbon’ to their Facebook page in return for which Pret would donate an extra 20p.
Reaching our target of £250,000 was never going to be easy but thanks to Pret’s good will and their legion of loyal fans – many of whom tweeted and shared news of the campaign with friends – we did it with a few days to spare. The end of the campaign left us with a delighted client, many grateful homeless people and a collective feeling of not just having done a good job, but of having done a job for good.
During Movember our very own Tom Carter has grown a fantastic moustache to raise awareness of the fight against prostate cancer.
The money raised by this moustache growing craze, sweeping the nation will be donated to The Prostate Cancer Charity, which will have an enormous impact on many men's lives. In addition, increased awareness will help fight prostate cancer on every front – through research, support, information and campaigning.
Did you know…!!
• Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK. 35,000 men are diagnosed every year. One man dies every hour
• 1 in 11 UK men will be diagnosed in their lifetime.
Please donate @ http://uk.movember.com/mospace/1298500/
Find out more about The Prostate Charity @ http://www.prostate-cancer.org.uk/
This January balloon dog’s Pret extraordinaire Will is going to reach new levels trekking Mt. Kilimanjaro for the fantastic Railway Children charity!
The Railway Children charity is dedicated to helping children living on the streets in the UK. To raise money for this worthy cause, Will shall be digging out his walking boots and packing in those extra calories to reach the summit of the highest freestanding mountain as well as the 4th most prominent mountain in the world, rising 19,298 ft from the base!!!!
It really will be an astounding achievement for our young Will, and we at balloon dog want to get you all involved by asking you to sponsor him for this fantastic charity.
So winter has set in and the weather is getting blustery and cold, and if you want to get that extra feel good factor on these dismal days there is nothing better than the selfless act of a little sponsorship to get you there……..and what better than this fine cause. So come on, support our Will at;
http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/WillCole
To find out more about the chosen charity Railway Children go to; http://www.railwaychildren.org.uk/
A great time was had by the balloon dog board at the RAC- organised "Kili 4 Kids" charity ball last Saturday. With our own Will Cole part of the team planning to conquer Mount Kilimanjaro next January, the ball aimed to raise funds for the Railway Children charity which gives kids on the streets a chance to get into school and a better chance in life.
Pictured is our resident footie expert Greig, now the proud owner of a signed Norwich City shirt for our new Reception area. What Greig doesn't know about football isn't really worth knowing so it was nice to see him secure such an iconic item, even if it did involve a Scotsman parting with money!
More on Will and the team's intensive preperations (two Pret Love bars a day!) for the climb in due course…
