BLOG: Alder Hey Charity thanks its Corporate Supporters

A year of unprecedented change hasn't stopped these organisations helping our amazing young patients.

Hello and welcome to the Alder Hey Corporate Team 2020 Round Up!

Well, what a year. In March, along with everyone else, the corporate team was thrown into an upside down world. All events were cancelled, and the best part of being a fundraiser, meeting our wonderful donors and supporters, became a virtual experience. With everyone’s change in priorities we faced some challenging times. However, as we look forward to 2021 with a renewed sense of hope and optimism, we thought now is the time to celebrate the successes of this year - because despite the circumstances, there have been a lot and we are incredibly grateful for all the support we have received, from people just like you.

 

The year got off to a flying start! Specialist Leisure Group raised a massive £28,000 in just 3 months! Ellie and Becky presented to Chris Bradley and the team at AECOM in Warrington, and Paul organised an off-the wall networking event at Ghetto Golf in Liverpool, which was a great success!

When lockdown hit, we were immediately approached by some wonderful local businesses, offering their support where they could to help our incredible Alder Hey staff. It seemed that overnight, there was an almost tangible appreciation for all key workers and especially our frontline workers in the NHS.

As a charity, we wanted to do all we could to support the Alder Hey staff who immediately stepped up to faces the oncoming challenges. The charity reacted quickly, funding research into understanding the impact of Covid-19 on children and young people, purchasing specialist mobile equipment and brand new technology to ensure our patients continue to receive specialist care remotely. We also funded additional counselling and support for all staff. We also set about creating Thank You packs, to be sent to each and every member of staff in the hospital, because Alder Hey operates as a massive team, which relies on every member of staff, whether patient facing or not.

Now it’s time for us to say thank you! All of the below companies and many more individuals did what they could to help us. Some donated goods, some waived their fees, and all are part of the Alder Hey family.

Our 2020 roll of honour includes:
QVC Burtons Halewood International
Clarins Smyths Toys Lyreco & Nespresso Professional
Costa Coffee Allied Bakeries Liverpool Hope University
The Marriott Hotel Bestway Kellogg
Home Bargains Bately’s Cash & Carry KPMG
Makro LFC Foundation QPC Global
Carousel PR Holland & Barrett (Stretford Mall and Southport) Mrs Darlingtons
DHL MilkJnrs Mr Vikkis Response Logistics
Deeside Laundry Thrifty’s Convenience Store Harvey Nichols
Sir Robert McAlpine Tesco Matalan
MGA Entertainment McCurrach UK Ltd on behalf of PepsiCo UK The Banana Bunch
B&M Morrisons Greggs
Iceland HLP Klearford Laura’s Little Bakery
Waitrose & John Lewis Accessorize Jacobs Biscuits
The Very Group Unilever O’keefes
Marks and Spencer Fitwell Limited Cargill

Beyond lockdown, we were so fortunate that we were able to run our Matalan PJ campaign, which this year focussed on Talking Therapies. The campaign was a huge success, despite having to change the way we sold the PJs. We took over a space in the Alder Hey Charity Shop in Old Swan, and offered a Click and Collect service for the first time. Thank you to everyone who bought these special PJs and if you’ve saved them until Christmas Eve, we can’t wait to see your pictures! Themoney raised from this campaign is going straight to our 7in10 Mental Health appeal, and you can find more information on this here.

We also launched our fundraising campaign #MillionMiles for Children’s Mental Health, encouraging individuals, teams and companies to walk, run, cycle or swim a set target of miles. In getting active, they will be actively benegitting their own mental and physical wellbeing, while raising money for those children who are really suffering with poor mental health.

Some of our #MillionMiles corporate champions so far are:

• Marpol Security, led by Jordan Mornington who raised £2275
• The RBS team, led by Phil Evans who raised £2182
• Helen Lloyd and Sarah Robinson from Ludlow Wealth Management who raised £1730
• We’re looking forward to seeing how AECOM get on in January, who are taking part in the challenge as part of their Active January campaign!

They’ve all helped us on our way to reaching 1 million miles, and our £3m fundraising target! Feeling inspired to take on a #MillionMiles challenge of your own? You can sign up here.

A massive thank you to Michelle Plant and the Carex brand team at PZ Cussons who kindly set up a fantastic promotion for us throughout December. For every Carex 250ml hand wash refill sold at Tesco stores nationwide and online at Tesco.com, Carex will donate one 50ml hand sanitiser to Alder Hey Children's Hospital, up to a maximum of 500,000 donations. This is a fantastic gift in kind and the first donated hand sanitisers are already being distributed to patients and families at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital.

And finally, as we couldn’t see so many of our lovely supporters this year, we held our first ever Alder Hey Corporate Team Christmas Quiz…‘Quizmas!’ in December. Thank you to everyone who took part, we had a blast, and thank you to Bennet Brooks for getting the whole company involved!!

We’ll be in touch in the new year as we have a lot of exciting things already in the calendar, but for now all that is left to say is…
Merry Christmas to everyone who has supported Alder Hey Children’s Charity, and we hope to see you all in 2021.

The Corporate Team