Hospice ‘banking’ on the ‘su-paw-t’ of local shopping centre!
Hospice ‘banking’ on the ‘su-paw-t’ of local shopping centre
North East shopping centre intu Eldon Square is now home to a special four legged guest as part of a fundraising initiative for a local charity – but this pooch won’t need to be taken for walkies!
The Newcastle shopping centre, one of the largest city centre shopping destinations in the UK, has chosen St Oswald’s Hospice as its Charity of the Year. One of the first initiatives to support the local charity is to provide a temporary home to the ‘Puggy Bank’, inspired by St Oswald’s recent Great North Snowdogs trail.
Puggy Banks are smaller Snowdog sculptures that have been converted into a donation box with a difference. intu will offer a home to one at intu Eldon Square until the end of the year and customers will be encouraged to feed their spare change to the pups, with all funds supporting the work of the Hospice.
The Puggy Banks are in the shape of a dog, but painted pink with a snout in a nod to the popular children’s money box. Their location in the centre will change, as Puggy moves about his new home in a bid to greet as many shoppers as possible over the next few months. All proceeds raised from Puggy Bank donations will support the work of St Oswald’s, which offers specialist care to local adults, young people and children with life limiting conditions.
St Oswald’s Hospice corporate fundraiser Siobhan Sargeant said:
“It’s wonderful to have been chosen as intu Eldon Square's Charity of the Year! Our Puggy Bank is delighted with his new home and are excited to meet shoppers, who we hope will be very generous in ‘feeding’ them.
“We loved working with intu during the Snowdog project, so it’s great to be able to carry on the partnership through exciting initiatives such as Puggy Banks. We look forward to a year of fundraising fun and want to thank intu for choosing to work with us.”
Clare Cannon, community manager, intu North added:
“St Oswald’s Hospice is one of the most recognised and hardworking charities in the north east and we are humbled to be able to offer our support as one of our nominated charities for 2017. I’m sure our Puggy Bank will bring lots of joy to our shoppers as he has already proven a huge success with the team at the centre.
We know our shoppers always give generously to good causes, and in the first month we’ve raised over £1,300 thanks to our caring customers.”
intu is also involved in several other ways to support St Oswald’s throughout 2017, with April being earmarked as a month of lots of activity. intu is sponsoring St Oswald’s 2017 Great North Run vests, which will bear their logo at the world renowned event this September. St Oswald’s have places available for anyone wishing to run for the charity and missed out on a place through the now-closed ballot. Contact [email protected] or call 0191 246 9123 for more information
