Tesco Dance Beats raises £2m for charity partners
Melanie May | 27 August 2019 | News
The Tesco Dance Beats campaign has raised £2million overall for its charity partners, British Heart Foundation, Diabetes UK, and Cancer Research UK.
Customer and staff donations raised £1million through dance events in Tesco stores across the UK, which saw local dance groups and Tesco colleagues perform none stop throughout the day on the 18, 19 and 20 July.
A huge thank you for your heroic efforts supporting #TescoDanceBeats. You donned your dancing shoes and didn’t disappoint! 30 hours of dancing to raise funds for @CR_UK, @TheBHF and @DiabetesUK. You can still text DANCE to 70507 to give £5 (16+ only) T&Cs: https://t.co/ucQqOLDg7s pic.twitter.com/f40yjhJ14L
— Tesco (@Tesco) July 22, 2019
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Over 10,000 people also accepted Oti Mabuse’s online Dance Challenge, which generated a £10 Tesco donation per post.
This July, tackle the UK’s biggest health challenges by joining us, @Tesco, @TheBHF & @CR_UK for #TescoDanceBeats. Step up, shake it down & move your feet to beat cancer, beat heart diseases & fight diabetes. Together, let’s dance our way to change! https://t.co/NjdiWJ5fOP pic.twitter.com/jD9ecdV3r7
— Diabetes UK (@DiabetesUK) June 20, 2019
In addition, Tesco donated £1 million on behalf of every staff member, family, friend and customer who broke the Guinness World Record for the longest dance marathon relay at Wembley Stadium. These thousands of dancers generated an average of 1.66 million steps an hour (10,000 steps per dancer) across a 30-hour challenge.
Simon Gillespie, Chief Executive of the British Heart Foundation, said:
“It’s been fantastic working with Tesco to celebrate their centenary year with the launch of Dance Beats. The public support for this fundraiser has been overwhelming and we want to thank everyone across the UK who got involved. The money raised will help the BHF fund pioneering research to improve the lives of the 7.4 million people in the UK living with heart and circulatory diseases.”
Dave Lewis, Tesco CEO, said:
“Our colleagues always go the extra mile to support great causes and in our centenary year we wanted to come together to put on our biggest ever fundraiser. With the support of our customers, we raised over £1 million for three amazing charities; and to help celebrate our centenary I’m delighted to announce we’re going to donate an additional £1 million, which recognises the nearly 4,000 colleagues, friends, family and customers who broke the Guinness World Record.”
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.