A record breaking partnership between Newlife the Charity for Disabled Children and materials handling supplier Briggs Equipment has raised £60,000 and helped 135 disabled children across the UK.
A staff vote at Briggs Equipment saw 30 per cent choose Newlife for their Charity of the Year, with employees raising £37,054 for Newlife, the largest charity provider of specialist disability equipment for disabled and terminally ill children in the UK.
Briggs then matched some of the funds raised by employees, bringing the total donated to £60,000.
Staff at Briggs Equipment’s three sites across the UK – in the Midlands, Scotland and Northern Ireland – took part in a variety of challenges and fundraising events, spurred on by seeing how the funds they raised helped children in their respective areas.
Events included a team skydive which raised almost £7,000, whilst the Scottish team raised over £2,000 by taking part in the Arochar Alps 3 mountain challenge, 21 members of staff took part in the three hour spin challenge raising another £1,550, and jeans days throughout the year raised nearly £1,500.
Individual efforts included Toni Collier’s 2018 London Marathon on an extremely hot day raising an outstanding £3,200.
One of the most active fundraisers was Rose Langley who completed a six part running challenge and hosted a car boot sale raising over £2,300.
When Rose started her challenge she was a new mum and Newlife’s work struck a chord with her. She said: “Any child and their family might need help from Newlife at any point.”
Chris Fielding, Newlife’s Deputy Community Fundraising Manager, said: “A massive thank you to everyone at Briggs for the incredible support and fundraising over the past 18 months. Every single penny of the £60,000 raised will go on vital equipment and will truly change lives.
“The combined efforts of all the staff at Briggs have had a massive impact. There are now 1.1 million disabled children in the UK. More families than ever before are turning to Newlife for help, which is why charity partnerships like this one with Briggs are so important as they enable us to be able to provide specialist, desperately needed equipment to disabled children. From Newlife and all of the children and families that have been helped we would like to say a sincere thank you and well done.”
Peter Jones, Group Managing Director of Briggs Equipment UK, added, “We are delighted to have raised a tremendous amount for such a worthy cause and extremely pleased that the outstanding efforts of Briggs employees have helped so many families across the UK.
“Newlife was the overwhelming choice of our employees and it is so pleasing that we have been able to create such broad engagement with the charity across our entire business during the last 18 months. Charity and community involvement is a key part of our Briggs business and I would like to thank all of our employees for their contribution.”
