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Roadchef pledges to raise £125,000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care

Roadchef is upping the ante with its pledge to raise £125,000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care, its 2013 Charity of the Year, after successfully raising £100,000 for the NSPCC in 2012.

Following a ballot of Roadchef’s 2,400 employees, Marie Curie was chosen as the 2013 charity. The funds raised will help Marie Curie Nurses provide more care to people with terminal illnesses in their own homes and in the charity’s hospices across the UK. Workers at each of the 20 Roadchef Motorway Service Areas also voted for a local charity to run alongside Marie Curie, to give directly back to their surrounding communities.

Simon Turl, Chief Executive Officer at Roadchef, commented: “Following the success of last year’s Charity of the Year initiative, which saw us consolidating our fundraising efforts as a company for the very first time, we’re excited to announce Marie Curie as our chosen charity for 2013.

Fundraising began in March with collection boxes placed at all Roadchef till points and a “wear yellow day” for staff, in line with the Marie Curie Great Daffodil Appeal, which sees millions of people across the UK giving a donation to wear a daffodil. A dedicated calendar of events for 2013 will include a cycling relay challenge, charity shop challenge, a corporate golf day, National Three Peaks Challenge and various fundraising events at the 20 Roadchef sites throughout Britain.

Roadchef and Thirsty Planet help bring clean water to Africa’s most needy

Roadchef has been awarded with a gold certificate from Thirsty Planet, the British bottled spring water company, after raising over £5,000 towards the installation of 10 water pumps in Malawi, Africa.

The 10 pumps will provide clean, safe water to over 1,000 people, across many village communities.

Thirsty motorway users helped Roadchef reach this significant milestone, with 2p from every bottle of Thirsty Planet water purchased at Roadchef’s 20 sites throughout Britain, going towards the build of water pumps in some of Africa’s most remote and poor areas. The 500ml bottles of water are currently sold through Roadchef’s WHSmith outlets, petrol forecourts and Restbite and Hot Food Co restaurants.

Thirsty Planet has raised over £1.5million in just five years, providing over 1 million people with clean, safe water and funding the construction of more than 8,000 elephant pumps in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Liberia, via its partner charity Pump Aid. Pump Aid provide simple, cost-effective, water pumps, which can be built and maintained by the local communities, empowering the men, women and children, creating a strong sense of ownership. Providing clean water improves standards of health, allows for education, enables farming and food security, improves conditions for women and encourages economic development.