50 Paddington statues to raise funds for NSPCC
Howard Lake | 5 November 2014 | News
London is now home to 50 statues of children’s storybook character Paddington Bear. The statues have been designed by artists and celebrities and have been placed in various public spaces throughout the capital. They will be auctioned off to raise funds for children’s charity NSPCC and its ChildLine service.
The Paddington Trail, sponsored by Barclaycard, has been developed by VisitLondon.com, the NSPCC and STUDIOCANAL, and accompanies the launch of the new film about the bear from Darkest Peru which is released this month in UK cinemas.
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Celebrities and artists create their Paddington
The bears include David Beckham’s ‘Golden Paws’, Emma Watson’s ‘Flutterby’, Benedict Cumberbatch’s ‘Sherlock Bear’, Peter Capaldi’s ‘Paddington Who?’, Stephen Fry’s ‘Paddington is GREAT’, Nicole Kidman’s ‘Blush’ and the Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s ‘The Bear of London’. They are on display until 30 December.
The Paddington Trail stretches from Heathrow in the west to the O2 in the east, and includes landmarks such as Horse Guards Parade, the Museum of Childhood, Selfridges, the Royal Opera House, and of course, Paddington station.
The three foot six inch tall statues will be auctioned online by Christie’s from 10 December to 7 January.
Peter Wanless, CEO of the NSPCC said:
“In the Paddington stories, Aunt Lucy implored Londoners to ‘please look after this bear’ and we’ll be giving people the chance to do just that when the statues are auctioned off later in the year in support of our ChildLine service.”
David Chan, CEO of Barclaycard Europe said that he hoped the initiative would raise hundreds of thousands of pounds to protect children from abuse and help give them a better future.
One other beneficiary charity
Two of the statues, designed by Rankin and Davina McCall, will be auctioned in support of Action Medical Research for Children, for which Paddington has been the official mascot for over 35 years.
Other statue fundraising appeals
Paddington is just the latest in a series of public art trails that have raised funds for charity. These include Cow Parade, The Giant Egg Hunt, Go-Go-Gorillas, Elephant Parade, Gromits, lions, giraffes and book benches. Next year sees Dragons coming to Norwich.
- The Paddington Trail raises £930,000 for the NSPCC (26 January 2015)
- The BFG public art trail to raise funds for Save the Children (4 May 2016)
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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.