22 December 2017
By Elaine Murphy
elaine@TheCork.ie
Applegreen today announced that their customers and staff all over Ireland have raised a milestone €2 million for charity since the foundation of the company’s charitable fund in 2009, making a crucial contribution to vital children and adult charity services nationwide. Applegreen fundraising efforts in Co Cork, including collections, the One for Ireland Campaign, Cork Mini Marathon and EB Awareness Week, have so far raised €19,982 to date thanks to local communities and Applegreen staff.
Since January 2016, over €1 million has been raised for current charity partners Debra Ireland, Barnardos, ISPCC Childline and Northern Ireland Children’s Hospice. The support from Applegreen fundraising has been invaluable to the service users and their families who receive support from these charities.
In particular,
- For Debra Ireland, these funds have been directed towards EB Community Care, supporting projects such as an EB Outreach Nurse and family support services tailored to individual families in their own homes
- The two-year partnership has supported Childline to recruit, select, train and manage over 60 Childline volunteers. These volunteers will answer over 90,000 calls from children all over Ireland. Many of these children feel scared, sad and lonely. Applegreen has ensured Childline is there to answer these calls – to give these children hope, to listen to and support them.
- In Northern Ireland Children’s Hospice, this funding has paid for the salary of three specialist children’s palliative care nurses helping support the lives of three hundred babies, children and young people with a life limiting illness.
- To date over 150 pre-school aged children living in disadvantage have been able to attend an intensive Barnardos Early Years development and school readiness programme to support their social, literacy and behavioural skills enabling them to join and succeed in school. The additional long term benefits of this support includes improved school completion and future employment prospects
To celebrate the incredible milestone, Applegreen is offering ‘double donations’ on all customer transactions in Applegreen stores throughout the month of December. Meaning that 2c from every purchase made in an Applegreen forecourt will be donated by the company to go towards funding the vital services of these incredible children’s charities.
On hand to celebrate the milestone and the launch of Double Donation December was Conor Lucey, Applegreen Head of Operations, “I am delighted to announce that Applegreen have raised €2 million for our charity partners since the foundation of our Charitable Fund, and €1 million of that in the last two years. Our theme for 2016 and 2017 was ‘Supporting Ireland’s Children’ and we are positive and thankful that the funds raised by Applegreen staff and customers will have a life changing impact on each of our charity partners and their patients and families”.
The Charitable Fund is very much embedded into the Applegreen culture and staff engagement is a huge part of the Applegreen ethos. Throughout the year head office staff and stores organise events to raise awareness, volunteer days and raise funds including static cycles, fun runs, skydives and marathons.
Commenting on the partnership, Jimmy Fearon CEO DEBRA Ireland said, “Applegreen’s support has had an extraordinary impact on the lives of our patients and their families – not only their generous investment in our EB Community Care programme but the incredible awareness of EB in the community through Applegreen’s phenomenal support of EB Awareness Week. Our families, who have struggled with the stigma of this rare and incurable disease, now experience a level of understanding never felt before.”
Grainia Long CEO ISPCC, “Congratulations to Applegreen on reaching their incredible €2 million milestone. The partnership with Applegreen has helped children all over the country. The funds raised by the wonderful employees and customers of Applegreen have helped Childline to continue listening to children who need support or need to talk to a trusted adult, every day and night.”
Earlier this year Applegreen won The Community Foundation for Ireland Corporate Philanthropist of the Year award for its significant support for a number of charities and also went on to pick up the Chambers Ireland Excellence in Community Partnership with a Charity LIC award.
