Argos and Homebase raise £2m for Teenage Cancer Trust

Home Retail Group has raised £2m in the first year of its two-year partnership with Teenage Cancer Trust, and has extended the partnership until February 2013.

Terry Duddy, chief executive of the Home Retail Group, which includes Argos and Homebase, said: “Teenage Cancer Trust is a special organisation that has impacted on our colleagues and customers like no other charity we have supported before.”

Home Retail Group’s previous charity partner was the British Heart Foundation for which they raised £3m over the course of a two-year partnership.

The partnership with Teenage Cancer Trust, which was announced in July 2010, is the biggest partnership the charity has ever had and chief executive Simon Davies described it as, “the single most important”.

He added that: “We have been blown away by the dedication and enthusiasm of Argos and Homebase colleagues and customers.”

Home Retail Group staff have taken part in fundraising activities including a mock wedding, a human greyhound race, and a naked calendar. Other aspects of the partnership include a mobile Facebook deal, sponsorship of ITV1 television show Sing If You Can, as well as gifts in kind, volunteering and awareness-raising in stores.

The company also involved young cancer patients in product focus groups and in providing voices for Homebase in-store radio adverts.

The money is being used in the building and maintenance of Teenage Cancer Trust units across the UK including in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Hull and Surrey.

Source : Kirsty Weakley – Civil Society Media
www.civilsociety.co.uk/fundraising/news/content/10672/argos_and_homebase_raise_2m_for_teenage_cancer_trust