Hotel Guests' Small Change Makes a Big Difference for Charity
Howard Lake | 11 February 2010 | News
Generous hotel guests have helped to make a big difference with their small change, thanks to a special three month fundraiser run in selected Hilton Worldwide hotels. The campaign has in total raised more than £65,000 to support children with disabilities.
Hilton in the Community Foundation’s Small Change Big Difference campaign invites Hilton guests to add an optional £1 onto their room bill throughout October, November and December. This simple and effective campaign has now raised over £900,000 since it first launched in 2004 for charities working with disadvantaged children, including Children with Leukaemia, Barretstown, Children’s Hospices UK and Save the Children.
Simon Vincent, President Hilton Europe said
“I would like to thank each of our 65,000 guests who chose to donate to this campaign, we are very grateful for their support. Together it has added up to make a huge difference to disabled children’s lives.”
Every net penny raised from the campaign will be granted by Hilton in the Community Foundation to charities supporting children with disabilities. The funds will provide specialist educational and sporting equipment, care facilities, training and activity based learning.
One UK charity that has already been selected for support from the campaign is The Children’s Society. The charity, which works with vulnerable children in the UK, will be receiving a grant of £28,500 towards a specially designed care suite to be added to a community garden project based in Thanet, Kent. The project provides support and resources for children who have physical or learning disabilities and their families.
Ivan O’Reilly, Programme Manager of the project said, “The Children’s Society are so grateful to the Hilton Community Foundation for this grant, it will make such a positive difference to the disabled children we work with”.
This year also marked the official expansion of Small Change Big Difference into Europe with 39 hotels in 12 EU countries joining the hotels in the UK and Ireland already taking part. Newly participating hotels included Hilton Prague, Hilton Copenhagen and the Conrad Brussels. Their fundraising will be supporting International charities such as Ligue Braille and Special Olympics Germany.
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.