Corporate partnerships at Christmas – who’s supporting who
Melanie May | 21 December 2023 | News
Another round up of corporate partnerships for the festive season, including B&Q’s support for Shelter, Gusto Italian and Young Lives vs Cancer, and Mercato Metropolitano’s Christmas Campaign, which supports a number of charities.
B&Q Christmas tree sales to benefit housing & homelessness charities
B&Q has announced that for every real Christmas tree bought at one of its 300 stores nationwide or on DIY.com, it will donate £1 to B&Q charity partner, Shelter, and its partner charities Shelter Scotland, Shelter Cymru, Housing Rights and Focus Ireland. B&Q will also be matching its customers’ donations throughout the festive period.
Through the £1 donations and matched funding, B&Q hopes to raise over £200,000 for these housing and homelessness charities, which would bring the total amount, donated by B&Q to Shelter and its partner charities this year, to over £800,000.
Advertisement
Gusto Italian supports Young Lives vs Cancer by adding voluntary donation to bills
Gusto Italian is continuing its tradition of adding a voluntary £1 to every guest’s bill from 1 December-31 January, with 100% of the proceeds being donated to Young Lives vs Cancer, through the support of the Tim Bacon Foundation.
In 2022, Young Lives vs Cancer was selected as Gusto’s first Charity of the Year by employee Jade Costello, who sadly died of cancer in June 2022. During her treatment, she met many people who were supported by Young Lives vs Cancer, and in her honour, Gusto continues to support the cause. So far Gusto have raised a total of £100,000. The money will help to support young people (aged 0-25) and their families who are battling with cancer. The charity’s specialist social workers provide guidance for families from diagnosis through cancer treatment, and their eleven Home from Homes offer free accommodations near hospitals.
Maggie’s Christmas Extravaganza raises £41K with help from headline sponsor Swansea Building Society
Swansea Building Society has celebrated the success of the inaugural Maggie’s Swansea Christmas Extravaganza, a festive celebration where the Society served as the headline sponsor. The event, held at Swansea Arena, raised £41,000 in support of Maggie’s cancer charity. Maggie’s has been Swansea Building Society’s official charity for the past two years.
The Christmas Extravaganza, attended by almost 1,400 people, achieved its fundraising milestone through ticket sales and on-site fundraising activities. Swansea Building Society has contributed £32,000 to the charity over the past two years, and will continue to support Maggie’s as its official charity throughout 2024.
Greene King runs Tub2Pub recycling campaign in support of Macmillan
Greene King is running ‘Tub2Pub’ this New Year – a recycling campaign to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support and recycle plastics. From 1 January until 11 February, its pubs, restaurants, and hotels will accept clean and empty confectionery, biscuit, and cracker tubs. People can leave their tubs with a Greene King staff member at the bar or welcome station within one of their locations.
After 11 February, all tubs will be collected and taken to a plastic reprocessing centre where they will be shredded, before being sold onto plastic manufacturers to use in place of virgin plastics. All money raised from the sale of Tub2Pub plastics will be given directly to Macmillan.
Access Self Storage collect over 1500 Christmas gifts in 10th anniversary Christmas charity appeal
More than 20,000 gifts have been collected since the Access Self Storage annual Christmas campaign began ten years ago. This year alone, Access Self Storage has received over 1,500 donations from local residents and customers at stores around the UK, in a bid to give someone elf a merry little Christmas.
All donated gifts will benefit both stores’ locally nominated charities or its national partner, children’s charity Spread a Smile. Local charities include The Children’s Adventure Farm – Manchester, Hope Charity – Northampton, Victoria Drive Community Wardrobe – Wimbledon, Kingston Hospital Trust – Kingston, and Get Rid Of and Donate – West Norwood.
Mercato Metropolitano launches Christmas Campaign to help families in the capital
Mercato Metropolitano, London’s sustainable community food market, has announced its Christmas Campaign to help 1,190 families and vulnerable people across the capital through a series of events from a Santa’s Grotto – which 400 children and 207 families have visited so far, 50% of whom qualified for a free ticket – to a soup kitchen.
Santa’s Grotto runs until 24 December at Mercato Mayfair and includes a performance of The Night Before Christmas, with half of the tickets provided free of charge to children with special education needs (SEN), children at the Evelina Hospital and low-income families. The Christmas Eve Disco Soup takes place at Mercato Metropolitano Elephant & Castle and its Christmas Lunch with Peckham Soup Kitchen on 25 December is also at Mercato Metropolitano Elephant & Castle, in partnership with Peckham Soup Kitchen. Mercato Metropolitano has partnered with The Felix Project, Centrepoint and FoodCycle.
DG Cars supports local food hub
Nottingham taxi firm, DG Cars, is helping local organisation, Edwalton Food Hub, deliver donations of Christmas food bundles for more than 100 families in need, per week. Founded in December 2022, by mum of three, Emma Haywood, Edwalton Food Hub was created to help those most in need of access to nutritional food. As household bills continue to increase, Emma has seen more and more families reach out for help and support.
In June 2023, operations came to an abrupt halt when Emma’s car broke down – stopping her from collecting end of sale produce for six weeks from the local shops and supermarkets she normally visited to build the food parcels. DG Cars reached out to provide an alternative form of transport. Since then, DG Cars has been given Edwalton Food Hub free food collection taxi rides.
Sodexo Health & Care donates 100,000 meals to The Bread and Butter Thing
Sodexo Health & Care has donated 100,000 frozen meals to support The Bread and Butter Thing in providing food to those in need of support this Christmas.
Working with Sodexo’s Stop Hunger Foundation and its supply partners Brakes and Lineage Logistics the frozen meals have been delivered to The Bread & Butter Thing so they can use them to provide nutritious hot meals to families across the UK over the Christmas and New Year period. The meals include a range of traditional favourites such as shepherd’s and cottage pie, chicken in gravy, liver and onions, sausage and mash, chicken goujons, cheese and tomato pizza, salmon fish cakes and chicken korma, including vegetarian chili, sausages and shepherd’s pie. The stock also includes side dishes such as mashed potato, cauliflower cheese and boiled rice.
Fleet of Cardiff and Newport business owners transform vans into ‘sleighs’ for Christmas charity collections
A fleet of local window cleaners have temporarily repurposed their vans into ‘sleighs’ and have spent the festive period collecting toys and goods for Cardiff charities, Boomerang and The Toybox Project. The local network of My Window Cleaner vans, covering East and West Cardiff, the city centre and The Vale and Newport, have reached out to their local communities, collecting over 1,000 items to help those living in poverty enjoy some festive cheer this season.
Made up of the local My Window Cleaner fleet, the project has involved five Cardiff and Newport locals turned business owners, Oli, Gareth, Owen and Joyce and John. Oli has focused his efforts on collecting for Boomerang, helping the charity receive over 50 additional collection bags. Meanwhile, Gareth, Owen and Joyce and John have all focused their efforts on The Toy Box Project, reaching out to hundreds of their customers in the area via their online management software.
Bellway staff take on trolley dash to collect Christmas gifts for Mission Christmas
Staff from a Bellway development in Newcastle took on a trolley dash to collect as many Christmas gifts as they could for disadvantaged children in the North East. Representatives from Bellway North East’s Westburn development in Westerhope filled up a trolley with toys at B&M in nearby St James’ Retail Park on Friday 15 December.
The toys they purchased have been donated to Metro Radio’s Mission Christmas Cash for Kids campaign, to be distributed to children who might otherwise not receive a gift this Christmas. Bellway North East has also hosted collection points at eight developments across the region to take in donations of new and unwrapped gifts for the appeal.
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.