Celebs support 2024 BBC Children in Need campaign – & other charities
Melanie May | 19 September 2024 | News
A round up of celebrity support for good causes – from Tom and Giovanna Fletcher designing this year’s BBC Children in Need t-shirt, to Romesh Ranganathan running next year’s London Marathon for Teenage Cancer Trust.
Celebrities support The Independent & Refuge campaign
Celebrities including Dame Helen Mirren, Sir Patrick Stewart, Olivia Colman, Dame Joanna Lumley, Andi Oliver and David Morrisey are supporting a campaign from The Independent and Refuge to raise funds to build a home for women and children fleeing domestic abuse.
The emergency Brick by Brick appeal aims to raise £300,000 and has been launched by The Independent, which has partnered with Refuge since early 2023. During the appeal, The Independent will publish news and features about Refuge’s work and include stories from survivors to educate the public about different forms of abuse, and signpost how to seek support. It will be supported by an ad campaign across all of The Independent’s channels, mobilising its UK readership of more than 21 million people.
Advertisement
Emma Bunton, Rita Ora, Jamie Laing, Sophie Habboo & others support BBC Children in Need’s 2024 campaign
BBC Children in Need launched its fundraising appeal on Friday, 13 September, with the celebrities including Emma Bunton (pictured), Rita Ora, Jamie Laing and Sophie Habboo, Louise Thompson, Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill and Ellie Simmonds heading the support of the campaign by sharing a piece of advice to their younger selves that would have helped take the weight off their shoulders as children.
In addition, husband and wife Tom & Giovanna Fletcher have designed this year’s Official T-shirt which all of the stars are wearing in the campaign. This year, BBC Children in Need is asking the public to make life lighter for children all across the UK.
Katharine Hamnett lends her support to Oxfam’s #SecondHandSeptember campaign
Fashion designer and activist Katharine Hamnett is supporting Oxfam’s #SecondHandSeptember campaign this year by lending her famed ‘NO MORE FASHION VICTIMS’ slogan to the campaign. The message will appear on a limited edition run of donated second-hand t-shirts from Oxfam which will be sold in its high street shops throughout September. It will be the first time that Hamnet’s slogan has appeared on second-hand clothing.
The limited-edition collectable second hand tees will be printed without harmful chemicals traditionally used in screen printing. Instead, water-based eco-inks will transfer the logos on to the pre-loved clothes. There will also be a QR code on the t-shirt leading to the Oxfam site where people can download a free jpeg of the artwork that they can take to their local printer and get printed on their own second-hand t-shirt.
John Bishop joins LFC Foundation’s Kip on the Kop
LFC fan and award-winning comedian John Bishop has signed up to take part in this year’s Kip on the Kop event at Anfield, to help raise awareness and funds for homelessness across the Liverpool City Region. The event will take place on Saturday October 12 and the funds raised will go towards supporting LFC Foundation’s Global Works programme, as well as Liverpool Homeless FC.
Participants are invited to spend a night sleeping under the stars at Anfield Stadium, with funds raised going towards supporting local homeless charities. Last season’s inaugural event raised over £65,000 which supported Liverpool Homeless FC and LFC Foundation’s Global Works programme.
Vinnie Jones urges people to learn CPR with the British Heart Foundation
Vinnie Jones has joined BHF’s Restarting 11 to urge more than a quarter of a million people to learn lifesaving CPR. Jones joins the star-studded team of football stars and real-life heroes as the squad’s enforcer tasked with using his unique powers of persuasion to encourage fans across the nation to step up and learn CPR.
The Wimbledon midfielder turned actor has a long-standing relationship with BHF, following his starring role in the 2012 ‘Hands-Only’ CPR advert. His transfer to the Restarting 11 gives the charity’s Every Minute Matters campaign with Sky Bet a renewed impetus going into the 2024/25 season. Together they aim to recruit 270,000 people – the equivalent of three Wembleys – to learn lifesaving CPR.
Romesh Ranganathan to run London Marathon 2025 for Teenage Cancer Trust
Comedian Romesh Ranganathan has announced he is running the 2025 London Marathon for Teenage Cancer Trust, having already supported the charity for many years. He first became involved with the charity after performing at the iconic Royal Albert Hall comedy night in 2016. He performed a further three times and donated signed items to help fundraise for the charity. In 2022 he supported Teenage Cancer Trust by performing at the Absolute Radio comedy night alongside a line-up of comedians.
In 2023, Ranganathan became Teenage Cancer Trust’s first Comedy Icon, and he invited young people supported by the charity to watch A League of Their Own being filmed. Throughout his recent UK headline tour HUSTLE, Ranganathan raised £8,000 split between Teenage Cancer Trust, and CALM, where he is a Patron.
Jim Broadbent presents Dementia UK’s first podcast
This World Alzheimer’s Month (September 2024), Dementia UK has launched its first ever podcast – ‘My life with dementia’, presented by celebrity ambassador Jim Broadbent. Broadbent has supported Dementia UK for a number of years, with the charity’s cause being close to his heart. In 2002 he won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of John Bayley in the film Iris which depicted the relationship between John and novelist Iris Murdoch, throughout their youth and then into older age, as Iris lived with Alzheimer’s.
The podcast is available on all major podcast platforms from Friday 20 September. It features the stories of people who have experienced the condition themselves in a variety of ways, from living with a diagnosis, to taking on a caring role they never expected. The podcast aims to provide listeners with useful insights and a deeper understanding of the condition through these stories, and through practical advice from the charity’s dementia specialist Admiral Nurses.
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.