6 July 2015
Foresters Annual Charity Appeal raises over £55,000 for Sense
Foresters Friendly Society, the member-owned mutual society based in Southampton which offers a range of savings and investment products for all the family, has on this date donated a total of £55,670.83 to Sense which was chosen as the Society’s annual President’s Charity Appeal for 2014/2015.
Throughout the year Foresters members and staff arranged a series of fundraising events and initiatives to raise money for Sense. Some of the key activities that took place throughout the year were as follows:
- Over £3,000 was raised from sales of the Society’s 2015 charity calendar
- One young Foresters member raised £1,150 by having her long hair cut short
- Over £1,000 was raised by members of staff who ran the 2014 Great South Run
- A Gala Dinner at the Society’s 2015 Annual General Meeting raised £2,587.50
Sense is a charity that supports and campaigns for children and adults who are deafblind. They work with a wide range of deafblind and multi-sensory impaired people, as well as those who have a single-sensory impairment with additional needs.
Sally Waterfield, Head of Marketing at Foresters Friendly Society, said: “Sense provides essential support to help deafblind people throughout the UK and we’re very pleased we could support such a great cause. We are proud to say that once again our members have raised a remarkable amount of money over the year to support our chosen charity.”
David Watkins, the Society’s President for 2014/2015, said “I’ve been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for my nominated charity, Sense, for deafblind people, and I’m also thrilled that some Foresters branches adopted Sense as their charity for the previous year which means valuable support was provided to the charity from Foresters.”
The Society has a long standing history of supporting charitable causes and since 2007 has raised well in excess of £500,000 for various organisations:
- 2013/2014 Over £86,000 was raised for Barnardo’s Children’s Charity
- 2012/2013 Nearly £60,000 was raised for Macmillan Cancer Support
- 2011/2012 Foresters donated £100,000 to Guide Dogs for the Blind Association as part of the appeal for Guide Dogs
- 2010/2011 The Society donated nearly £70,000 to Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI)
- 2009/2010 Foresters raised £65,000 for the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society
- 2008/2009 Foresters Friendly Society donated nearly £60,000 to Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association
- 2007/2008 Foresters donated £47,000 to CLIC Sargent
Alzheimer’s Research UK is the Society’s chosen charity for 2015/16.
For more information about Sense go to www.sense.org.uk.