Tesco puts itself at British Red Cross' service for emergency response
Howard Lake | 28 January 2009 | News
Tesco has committed to mobilise all parts of its business to support future British Red Cross emergency responses, whether at a local, national or global level. Support could include corporate donations, staff and customer giving, donation of goods and the global store and distribution network.
The two organisations have been working together over 10 years, and Tesco has helped raise £3.9 million for emergency appeals. In 2007 the charity was Tesco’s Charity of the Year.
David Reid, Tesco Chairman, said: "Tesco and the Red Cross are now entering into a formal partnership to work together to help people affected by crisis. As our official partner for emergency relief, the British Red Cross will advise us on where, when and how to lend our support, be it cash, in-kind, or even people.
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"In turn, Tesco have put in place defined protocols to activate the immediate support of our business, to support the Red Cross when crisis strikes".
Tesco will be setting aside money that the Red Cross will know it can draw on in responding to an emergency. Also, when a major incident occurs in the UK, the Red Cross will know that it can access food, water and supplies from local Tesco stores to bring relief to the affected community.
Sir Nick Young, Chief Executive of the British Red Cross, said: "We consider this partnership vitally important and unique because Tesco consistently mobilises all parts of its business to support us during an emergency.
"Knowing that we can ask for the support of the Tesco Charity Trust, Tesco employees and customers, and the store and distribution network to donate goods makes an enormous difference to how we can respond in a crisis and undoubtedly will increase the number of innocent lives we save."
www.redcross.org.uk
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.