Text campaign launched to bring frontline forces some cheer
Howard Lake | 16 December 2010 | News
Actress Beverley Callard, who plays ‘Coronation Street’ landlady Liz MacDonald, is helping to promote a text campaign by breweries and pub companies to bring some Christmas cheer to serving frontline troops.
The Buy Our Heroes a Drink campaign organised by the military charity The British Forces Foundation and managed by Abbey Solutions International Ltd. All 23,000 servicemen and women on operations over the festive period, including those on the frontline, will receive a free drinks voucher which they can cash in for a bevy, whether a beer or a coffee, at their local on their safe return home during the New Year.
Callard, whose stepson has been serving in Afghanistan, is urging members of the public to support the campaign. She said: “With so much focus on injured personnel there’s a risk of heroes on the frontline feeling forgotten. I know how important it is to the guys out there to know that the people back home are thinking of them.
“All you need to do to buy one of our deserving heroes a welcome home drink is text the word HEROES to 70099. Text messages cost £3 plus one message at your standard network rate.”
The British Forces Foundation has teamed up with nine breweries and pub companies throughout the UK who are supporting the campaign. SA Brain, Diageo, Enterprise Inns, Everards, Punch Taverns, Shepherd Neame, St Austell, Wadworth and Yates’s (Town & City) have all signed up.
Money raised from HEROES texts will also help to fund The British Forces Foundation’s other morale-boosting projects, including its shows for troops on the frontline. The charity is taking Katherine Jenkins and James Blunt to entertain servicemen and women in Afghanistan just a few days before Christmas.
The campaign has already attracted the support of media companies including Clear Channel, Boomerang Media, Primesight, and KBH on Train Media. They have all given significant free advertising space to the campaign so the public can get involved across the UK. Posters showing the text HEROES number will appear at train stations, on trains in the South East, roadsides, health clubs, shopping centres and hundreds of cinemas throughout December and January.
www.bff.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.