Pets at Home donates £5mn in a year to animal charities, & other corporate partnership news
Melanie May | 24 May 2022 | News
Pets at Home donated the sum in the year to March 2022. Read on for news of more corporate partnerships raising money and offering other support to good causes around the UK.
Animal charities & Pets at Home
Pets at Home has donated more than £5mn to charities helping pets and the people who love them in the year to March 2022. This is supporting over 750 organisations, including Dogs for Good and RSPCA. The Pets at Home Foundation led a number of fundraising activities across the Group’s stores, Vets4Pets practices and Groom Rooms, including its annual Santa Paws appeal. Funds were also donated through Pets at Home’s VIP Lifelines Scheme, which enables VIP members to raise Lifelines for their favourite animal charity each time they shop with Pets at Home. Lifelines are then converted into vouchers for charities to spend in store to help the animals in their care. Pets at Home has donated to over 750 organisations, ranging from some of the largest national animal charities through to small, local rescue centres.
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The Bread and Butter Thing & the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation
The Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation is extending its work with The Bread and Butter Thing (TBBT). Sodexo’s partnership with TBBT began in February 2021. Business in the Community (BITC) brokered the relationship with TBBT and facilitated skills-based volunteering, where Sodexo initially offered support with Salesforce, logistics, and data. Further skills-based volunteering, such as supporting with their branding and marketing and regular volunteering slots, are now available for all Sodexo colleagues at TBBT’s Manchester warehouse and community hubs. Over the past year, the partnership has continued to evolve, with Sodexo utilising its services and network by trialling food redistribution activities that use food surplus and address food insecurity. To further support TBBT’s members, Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation has provided the charity with a £10,000 grant to help deliver The Bread and Butter Thing Healthy Start Project.
Spina Bifida Hydrocephalus Scotland & Chisholm Hunter
Scottish charity Spina Bifida Hydrocephalus Scotland (SBH Scotland) has received a donation of £30,000 from long-standing supporter Chisholm Hunter, following the cancellation of their biggest annual charity event due to Covid. For three decades, Chisholm Hunter have been staunch supporters of SBH Scotland with a focus, most recently, as headline sponsor of their annual “A Question of Burns” supper, which typically welcomes 500 people each year to join in an evening of poetry, performances and dining. Since its launch in 1981, the event has raised over £1 million for the charity, however due to the continued impact of Covid on the Scottish charity, the planned ‘in person’ event had to be cancelled entirely this year. The donation from Chisholm Hunter has helped the charity to fill the funding void left by the cancelled event.
SERV Wessex -The Blood Runners & Hendy Group
A charity which delivers blood products, urgent samples and medication across Hampshire, East Dorset and South Wiltshire has been given a boost thanks to Hendy Group which has supplied SERV Wessex -The Blood Runners with a car for its work. The Kia Niro has been donated for two years and will help the charity in its work across the region which sees SERV Wessex operating an out of hours service during the week and 24 hours at weekends and public holidays 365 days of the year. Volunteers transport a wide range of products to hospitals and patients, and it also replenishes blood and plasma carried on the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance.
Macmillan & Greene King
This month, Greene King is marking its milestone partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support by launching its first-ever nationwide prize draw. Running from 1May until 30June, entrants will be in with a chance of winning the top prize of £10,000 in cash. Additional prizes on offer include £2,900 – which is enough to pay an average household’s energy bills for a year – plus £2,500 garden vouchers and a wide selection of Greene King gift cards. Greene King is inviting customers and team members to make a voluntary donation of £3 to Macmillan Cancer Support to enter the draw, plus one standard network rate message. All 1,600 managed pubs in the Greene King estate will be supporting the prize draw, with each site also offering a unique SMS entry code, giving customers an alternative method of entering the draw. Alongside this, in celebration of the milestone pubs will continue to host individual fundraising events for Macmillan. Since 2012, Greene King has raised over £11m thanks to annual fundraisers, coffee mornings and via Pennies, the digital charity box; the equivalent of 343,750 Macmillan professional nursing hours.
The Hygiene Bank & Redline Assured Security
Redline Assured Security, part of Air Partner Services, has begun taking donations for The Hygiene Bank. A collection box has been set-up in the company’s Doncaster office where staff members and locals can now donate hygiene products. The Hygiene Bank Doncaster distributes to 19 schools, 23 foodbanks, and 19 community groups in the area. These community groups include Baby Basics, Refugee and Asylum Seeker Support Groups, Women’s Hubs, Family Hubs, School Nurses, Special School Nurses, Unemployment Support Groups, Homeless Support Groups, Young Carers, and the Sikh Youth Community. Last year they supported almost 27,000 recipients and have already supported just over 10,000 this year. Essential household items including toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant, toilet rolls, nappies, and sanitary products, have been donated by Redline employees. The Hygiene Bank will distribute all donations to key hubs in local towns and cities, such as schools, food banks, and community groups.
PoetsIN & Redwood Bank
PoetsIN, a charity offering a creative outlet for people experiencing mental illness has become the official Charity of the Year for Redwood Bank, based in Hertfordshire and Warrington. It has pledged to support PoetsIN with monthly donations and proceeds from its fundraising activities. As part of the partnership, PoetsIN will deliver workshops to Redwood staff in support of their workplace wellbeing. Redwood has supported a number of charities and good causes in recent years, including a donation of £10,000 for the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust in its fight against COVID-19 in 2020. Last year, the bank raised funds for the teenage cancer charity, Teens Unite, with staff walking, cycling or running as many miles as they could throughout April. The hospice St Rocco’s also benefited after Redwood supported its ‘Renovate a Room’ scheme, donating £2,000 to refurbish a room for patients.
British Beekeepers Association & Victorian Plumbing
Ahead of World Bee Day (20 May), Victorian Plumbing launched a bee-sized bidet as well as pledging to donate all bidet sales to the British Beekeepers Association. 100% of profits of the adult-sized bidets sold on 20 May were donated to The British Beekeepers Association and its Save the Bees appeal.
Soccer Aid for UNICEF & The Power of Nutrition
Soccer Aid for UNICEF, taking place on Sunday 12 June at London Stadium, has announced a new partnership with charitable foundation The Power of Nutrition, which will match public donations and fundraising up to a total of £4 million. The funds will go towards UNICEF programmes to improve access to nutrition and health for children, tackling the underlying causes of malnutrition and poverty.
Crohn’s & Colitis UK & SimplyHealth
Simplyhealth is supporting World IBD day with a £30,000 donation to Crohn’s & Colitis UK. The donation will enable the charity to expand its patient information programme, and reach more people in communities where health literacy is low and information provision is limited.
National Express pilots discounted travel offer for charities in West Midlands
National Express is running a pilot discounted travel offer for charities in the West Midlands that can be used by staff and service users. By signing up to a free portal, charities can access a range of benefits including a 5% minimum travel discount on National Express buses, with an extra adult able to travel all day for £2 (half price), and up to 2 children for £1 (also half price). There are also discounts across West Midlands attractions (up to 50%) including the Black Country Museum, Think Tank, Sealife Centre, and Pen Museum.
The portal can be downloaded on a mobile phone, so travellers can use their mobile to book tickets, or use a bus/ Swift card, and there are options for weekly, monthly, and flexi travel. The discount is valid 7 days per week, 24 hours a day. Options are also flexible depending on whether a charity wishes to subsidise some of the travel costs or whether the travel is fully funded by the user. For an informal discussion contact he*********@na*************.com .
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.