Argos corporate news
Argos employees Go Yellow in face of £65,000 Hospice Challenge
29 September 2006
Argos has set its employees a challenge to raise £65,000 in one month for hospice care as part of its partnership with Help the Hospices, the national charity for the hospice movement. October will be Argos’ third ‘Hospice Challenge Month’ and the theme this time is ‘Go Yellow’, to tie in with the colour of the hospice movement whose symbol is the sunflower. During the last Hospice Challenge Month which took place in June, over £40,000 was raised. Each store that hits a target of £100 will be put into a prize draw to win one of 50 prizes of an additional £100 being paid by Argos to the winner’s local hospice.
The ‘Go Yellow Hospice Challenge Month’ has been timed to coincide with World Hospice and Palliative Care Day which is taking place on 7th October. It also corresponds with the first anniversary of ‘Tick to Give’, an innovative fundraising scheme launched by Argos as part of its partnership with Help the Hospices at the end of September 2005. ‘Tick to Give’ provides Argos’ customers with the option to tick a box on their order slip if they would like to donate 20p to Help the Hospices. The scheme has generated £100,000 in its first year and each week is currently raising over £2,000 – equivalent to 10,000 ticks. The money from ‘Tick to Give’ donations supports Hospice Information, an online and telephone information service for patients and healthcare professionals. Hospice Information enables thousands of people to access the information they need to make informed choices about the care that they or their loved one can receive towards the end of their life.
Lorna Liggett, community affairs manager at Argos, commented, “The ‘Go Yellow Hospice Challenge Month’, like ‘Tick to Give’, is a very simple idea. The beauty of it is that it allows people to take a creative approach to fundraising, to get involved and to have fun. We’re looking forward to activities involving custard, sunflowers, balloons, face paint and lots of other yellow stuff. This is something that both customers and employees can engage with.” Anne Seymour, corporate fundraiser at Help the Hospices, said, “As hospice care is open to everyone and provided completely free of charge, £65,000 would really help local hospices to continue offering their invaluable care to patients and their families. We are truly delighted at the level of enthusiasm and generosity of Argos staff and customers to date. It is proving to be an exceptionally successful partnership for all parties.”
The two-year partnership between Argos and Help the Hospices – “Helping Hospices, Helping Families” – which began on 30th July 2005, raised more than half a million pounds for hospice care in its first year, greatly exceeding its projected target of £600,000 over two years. It is now on course to generate over £1 million by the end of July 2007. A key feature of the partnership has been the relationship between Argos’ stores, distribution centres, contact centres and head office with individual local adult and children’s hospices in their area, giving the company’s 24,000 employees the opportunity to make a difference within their local community.
