BT volunteers raise £198,000 for Marie Curie & Irish Cancer Society

BT’s annual all-island charity shop takeover, BT Shop for Change, raised an astounding £198,000 for Marie Curie and the Irish Cancer Society, bringing the total funds raised over the last six years to more than £600,000.

150 BT employees took part in Northern Ireland alone, raising a total of £65,000 in a variety of ways.

Volunteer teams from all sections of the business, including sales and engineering, gave up their time to raise cash through in-store sales, auctions, on-street performances, quizzes, dressing up, baking cakes and much, much more.

Some of the highlights from the charity partnership included:

• Sale of a pair of boxing gloves signed by Carl Frampton for £1000
• Competition to guess how many balloons fit in a phone box
• Sponsored virtual bike ride from Cookstown to Belfast telephone exchanges

Over the past few months, the BT workforce across Northern Ireland and the Republic has donated in excess of nearly 4,000 volunteer hours of their time for Marie Curie and the Irish Cancer Society. The funds raised represent a record for BT's partnership with the two charities, beating all other years in terms of volunteer numbers, hours and money raised.

Clayre Sloan, Area Retail Manager, Marie Curie said: “We’re so grateful to BT and their staff for their support. The donation to Marie Curie equates to over 3,000 hours of nursing care. For people living with a terminal illness this means access to vital care and support when they need it most. In NI that’s through our Belfast hospice, day hospice outpatient services and nursing and volunteer ‘Helper’ services supporting people in their own home.”

Paul Murnaghan, Regional Director at BT Business NI, said: “Every year, our teams of volunteers want to better their best and bring in more money than ever before and, once again, I’m proud to say that they’ve done just that.

“We’ve received so much public support and we’d like to thank everyone who donated clothes and other stock and who came along to the shops on our takeover days.

“Knowing that the money raised in Northern Ireland will help fund over 3,000 hours of palliative nursing care gives all our volunteers a great sense of achievement. BT Shop for Change is as much about raising awareness of the need for better end of life care, as it is about raising money.

“We are proud of our volunteering policy which allows our hard-working teams to dedicate time and effort to a cause close to their hearts and puts BT at the heart of our local communities.”