# Text campaign launched to bring frontline forces some cheer

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2010/12/16/text-campaign-launched-bring-frontline-forces-some-cheer/
- Published: 2010-12-16T09:28:31+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**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.

## Advertisement

“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

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