Charities
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Since 2001, our stores and Head Office have raised over £219,100 for nominated charities including £62,000 for Children in Need, £63,000 for the Variety Club Children's Charity, £63,600 for Meningitis Trust, €3,768 for the Marie Keating Foundation and £42,000 for the Caron Keating Foundation as detailed below:


The Caron Keating Foundation

Most people's lives have been touched by cancer in some way. During Easter 2006 and October 2007, we set aside a fundraising day to raise money for the Caron Keating foundation which provides financial help to small but significant cancer charities.

Last year, Gloria Hunniford visited our Head Office to collect a cheque for £30,000.

   

Anthony & Charles with Gloria Hunniford and our cheque

So far this year we have raised over £12,000, watch this space for our total amount raised in 2007

Further information about the Caron Keating Foundation can be found at www.caronkeating.org

The Variety Club

During Easter 2007 we also set aside a charity day at our Head Office and throughout our stores and managed to raise £17,000 which was given towards our third Variety Club Sunshine Bus.

In November 2007, accompanied by X-Factor's Eton Road, Anthony and Charles Smith were delighted to present the bus to Park School in Blackpool, which caters for 154 children aged 4-19 all with moderate and severe learning difficulties. The headteacher Mr. Berry said, "This new bigger coach will have real impact on the lives of the children. We will be able to involve more pupils in school projects and increase the number of community activities."

 

Throughout 2004/5 we raised £46,600 for the Variety Club Children's Charity. This money was donated to the Variety Club in order to help their work striving to improve the quality of Britain's most vulnerable, sick, disabled and disadvantaged children.

In August 2006 we were honoured to present our cheque to Leicester born and raised celebrity, Engelbert Humperdinck. Engelbert and the Variety Club representatives paid us a visit to collect the cheque which has already started to help change children's lives.

The money was allocated to several causes nationwide including two Sunshine buses (shown below).
                 
                                                       Tor Bank School, Belfast
                  

                   Kingsweston School, Bristol           Anthony & Charles with Engelbert Humperdink

 

To find out more about the Variety Club visit www.varietyclub.org.uk

Meningitis Trust

In October 2006, all stores and Head Office took part in a fundraising day to raise money for the Meningitis Trust.


 

The trust sponsored the Leicester Marathon in 2006.

Anthony Smith (Chief Executive) and Zoe Ledgerwood (Manager Reading)  took part

and raised over £14,000 for the Meningitis Trust.

Our total amount raised from our stores, Head Office and the Leicester Marathon

was a fantastic £63,600!

 

Marie Keating Foundation

The Marie Keating Foundation was established by Ronan Keating's family following the death of his mother.  Their aim is primarily to provide Breast Cancer Information and Awareness free of charge to the general public, throughout the Republic of Ireland. Money raised in our Republic of Ireland stores during Easter 2006, totalling €3768.00, was donated to the worthy cause.


Further information about the Foundation can be found at www.mariekeating.com