Boots and its customers raise over one million pounds for BBC Children in Need

As this year’s BBC Children in Need campaign culminates Boots has revealed it has raised over one million pounds for the charity this year. Boots has supported BBC Children in Need for the past three years and during that time has raised over £1 million pounds for the children’s charity. This year Boots is the only high street retailer supporter and so it set its sights high; with customers, store teams and the head office team’s help they have raised £1 million pounds in just one year this time around.

One of the main fundraising activities was a toy donation campaign; for every toy sold between 24th October and 20th November 2007 Boots has donated £1 to BBC Children in Need. This includes toys sold both in stores and on the boots website, and the online sales alone have already raised over £80,000.

Other Boots charity activities included a donation of 10p from every sandwich sold in Boots in the week running up to the main televised BBC Children in Need event, plus the sale of a range of cute Pudsey Bear products. Even reusable Pudsey bear bags were sold so customers could do their bit for the environment whilst also helping disadvantaged kids in the UK too. In addition Boots store teams around the country and the Boots central team joined in the fun with some innovative fund-raising ideas, with the central team alone raising over £50,000.

BBC Children in Need is in its 27th year and over that time has raised more than £450m to help disadvantaged children and young people in the UK. The statistics show just how necessary the charity’s work is; in the UK 2.8million children live in poverty, it’s estimated that one hundred thousand children run away from home each year, one child in twenty is classified as disabled and there are 175,000 young carers in Great Britain.

Boots is the UK’s leading health, beauty and toiletries retailer and is considered one of the must trusted brands in the UK (Customer Trust Index January 2007). Each year Boots supports a variety of charities, including Breast Cancer Care, The British Heart Foundation, Eve Appeal and BBC Children in Need. In 2006 Boots raised approximately £1.2m for their chosen charities, so in raising £1 million for Children in Need alone, this total will be smashed in 2007.

Boots would like to thank all of its customers for its support of the campaign – this fantastic figure could not have been raised without their help.

BBC Children in Need Charity (registered charity no. 802052).

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PR contact:

Carrie Eames
PR Manager
Boots The Chemists
D90W WG14
Thane Road
Nottingham
NG90 1BS
Tel: 0115 959 5995