SPAR NI has been partnered with Marie Curie since 2017, and has raised over £670,000 so far, with over £160,000 raised in 2022 alone.

As the need for community nursing, and provision of services for those with terminal illnesses to have dignified final days increases, the organisation is in need of volunteers to push their fundraising drive even further.

Bronagh Luke, Head of Corporate Marketing at Henderson Group which owns SPAR in Northern Ireland added; “Festive fundraising can be a huge driver of cash for local charities, so we’re delighted to get behind Marie Curie’s volunteer drive and provide spaces for safe fundraising at our SPAR stores.

“By volunteering to collect in a local SPAR store to support Marie Curie, volunteers will be helping the organisation to bring light and dignity to those at the end of their lives, and their families, in their darkest hour. So we’re appealing for volunteers to step up and give an hour of their day at our stores to help Marie Curie which brings such vital services in our local communities.”

In recent years, in-person fundraising volunteer numbers have dropped, mainly due to the lack of opportunity post-pandemic. Conor O’Kane, Partnership Manager at Marie Curie NI added; “Charitable organisations around the world were hit hard by the pandemic, we’re just incredibly fortunate to have such a robust partnership with SPAR NI, who have gone above and beyond for us in the past two years.”

Michele Button-Stephens is a Marie Curie volunteer from Holywood. She volunteers for the charity as a collection box coordinator in Holywood, and as a collection volunteer in Holywood and East Belfast. Michelle says she would encourage others to consider volunteering for Marie Curie this Christmas; “I enjoy volunteering and collecting for Marie Curie at my local SPAR. The staff are so welcoming, no-one passes without saying hello.

“Collecting gives individuals the opportunity to donate to our charity and what always amazes me is the number of people that do so and their generosity warms my heart. It also gives me the chance to chat and listen to each of their personal Marie Curie stories. I always go home at the end of the day feeling good. ”

SPAR NI has activated a series of fundraising initiatives in recent months, including raising over £57,000 during the recent Blooming Great Tea Party, which took place across over 300 stores in Northern Ireland. Stores also supported the Great Daffodil Appeal this year, with SPAR NI’s Buy a Bunch to Give a Bunch raising over £20,000 throughout the month of March.

Conor continued; “Now that it is safer to have in-person collections and fundraising volunteers back out and about, we’re grateful that SPAR NI is not just providing their shops for our volunteer spots, but is sharing their platform to enable us to shout about how important our services are, and how we need volunteers to help us deliver them across Northern Ireland.

“Just £20 supports an hour of nursing care, and the average amount collected in an hour of volunteering is around £40. Already, that hour given by our volunteers makes a huge difference for those people at home or in our Hospice who are the end of their lives.”

Alongside providing spots for Marie Curie volunteers to fundraise at their stores, SPAR NI will also be donating 10p from each sale of their Christmas sandwich range to the charity, alongside EUROSPAR NI charity partner, Cancer Fund for Children.

SPAR NI’s Festive Marie Curie Appeal will be supported in-store with shelf cards, on shopper leaflets distributed to over 684,000 homes, digital and adshel campaigns, plus content across SPAR NI’s social media platforms.

To volunteer to collect at your local SPAR store for Marie Curie this Christmas, visit spar-ni.co.uk/marie-curie.

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As part of Business in the Community’s annual Responsible Business Awards, Henderson Group was named winner of the Investing in Your Community Award for the SPAR NI brand.

The Award recognises an organisation that best demonstrated a positive impact on communities through going beyond its core business to invest time, resources and expertise to tackle disadvantage.

In 2020, SPAR NI was one of the first local companies to respond to community needs during the pandemic, and immediately launched a series of community initiatives to be there for local communities’ health and wellbeing, their vulnerable and their charities and community groups – with an objective to raise £230,000.

Actions included partnerships with Healthy Kidz to develop virtual sports days while schools were shut, installing even more public access defibrillators outside their stores and establishing a new partnership with Action Mental Health.

SPAR NI launched the Community Cashback Grant, which saw 16 local groups and organisations receive a share of a £20,000 grant, while fundraising for Marie Curie continued as the charity felt the impact of events being cancelled, with SPAR dedicating their 60^th anniversary in Northern Ireland to fundraising for their charity partners.

Over £783,000 was raised – smashing through their targets, and bringing the total amount raised by SPAR, EUROSPAR and ViVO stores and shoppers to over £7 million.

Bronagh Luke, Head of Corporate Marketing at Henderson Group added: “We are incredibly proud of what we and our teams give to our local communities across Northern Ireland, and in particular how each and every member of our teams from headquarters to store had a part in being there for their communities during the most challenging two years.

“Each store is at the heart of their local communities, and we have over 300 SPAR stores in Northern Ireland. We are delighted to pick up this award which recognises all that we as a local, family-run business, and all that our local retailers do for their communities.”

Winners in all ten responsible business categories at the Awards, were announced at a gala event held at ICC Belfast, hosted by BBC presenter, Holly Hamilton.

Organised by responsible business network Business in the Community, the Awards take place annually and in 2022 the event was run in partnership with key sponsor Henry Brothers, event partner JP Corry, media partners Ulster Business and U105, and community partner Department for Communities.

Chair of Business in the Community Northern Ireland and Group Chief Executive of Translink, Chris Conway, said: “The Awards bring the great work of Northern Ireland’s responsible businesses into the spotlight and celebrate inspirational and impactful organisations going beyond profit to make NI a better place to work and live.

“The gala event is always inspirational and gives guests the opportunity to learn about what others are doing across a range of responsible business themes. Everything from health and wellbeing to environment, volunteering, inspiring and engaging young people, and more.

“Congratulations to the ten companies who went home with an Award on the night – a commendable achievement.”

On stage – Pictured (L-R): Colm McElroy, Partner, Arthur Cox, Bronagh Luke, Head of Corporate Marketing, Henderson Group and Kieran Harding, Managing Director, Business in the Community Northern Ireland

Backstage – Pictured (L-R): Laura Thompson, Corporate Marketing Manager, Henderson Group, Bronagh Luke, Head of Corporate Marketing, Henderson Group, Colm McElroy, Partner, Arthur Cox, and Lisa McIlvenna, Deputy Managing Director, Business in the Community Northern Ireland

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In total, £517,605 was raised thanks to shopper donations which were matched by SPAR, EUROSPAR and ViVO, and is already helping families prepare for when disaster strikes, like Sumi Begum and her family who live in the Bay of Bengal.

Sumi lives with her husband and two young sons in a village in Bangladesh, where their small, wood-frame house sat on a low-lying mudflat alongside the powerful Andharmanik River. Their family home has been regularly flooded by heavy rain and tidal swells caused by increasing cyclonic activity in the Bay, which has caused significant trauma to the young family for fear their house would be swept away, as Sumi watched the plinth their house was built on get gradually washed away.

Now, alongside Tearfund’s partner in Bangladesh, the family have had a new protective foundation built from reinforced concrete, which has helped save the family’s lives and livelihoods.

Bronagh Luke, Head of Corporate Marketing says you cannot put a value on the positive impact those funds raised have on families like Sumi’s.

“We are so grateful to our generous shoppers and motivated retailers who put so much into the Tearfund appeal at the end of 2021. This is a new record of fundraising for our annual Tearfund appeal, which enables the charity to channel funds into those in most need through their partners who are helping build better lives around the world,” she says.

“Hearing Sumi’s story and how our donations have helped her sleep at night thanks to the reinforced foundation her house now sits on, should hit home with all of us and shows us just how important it is to continue to help our neighbours around the world.”

The money was raised during the ‘A Gift for your Neighbour’ campaign which ran throughout November and December, in a response to help push vital funds towards the communities living in poverty around the world and feeling the acute effects of Covid, conflict and climate change.

Glen Mitchell, NI Director at Tearfund added: “We are thrilled by the record-breaking generosity shown by shoppers and retailers at SPAR, EUROSPAR and ViVO to the ‘A Gift for your Neighbour’ appeal. We are incredibly grateful for our ongoing partnership with SPAR, EUROSPAR and ViVO. It enables Tearfund and our partners to continue to bring life-saving solutions to people living in poverty around the world, helping families like Sumi’s to be safe and ready for when disaster strikes.”

Pic caption: Chris Thompson from Tearfund NI joins Bronagh Luke, Head of Corporate Marketing at Henderson Group to celebrate SPAR, EUROSPAR and ViVO shoppers helping to raise over £517,000 for Tearfund’s ‘A Gift for Your Neighbour’ campaign.

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The announcement of this initiative coincides with Earth Day celebrations on Friday 22^nd April, which encourages people to think about climate change and take actions to become more environmentally friendly.

‘One Tree Planted’ is a non-profit organisation that wants to make it easier for people to help the environment and make a positive impact around the world. They have had a huge impact globally by planting over 40 million trees in more than 43 countries, since 2014.

The campaign will not only educate shoppers, but also contribute to a healthier environment for local communities and enhance the stores’ overall sustainability. SPAR has made a generous donation of £12,500 to the cause across the UK, meaning that at every store in Northern Ireland, a total of five trees will be planted.

This impressive donation is part of SPAR’s new 2022 brand positioning ‘The Joy of Living Locally’, which celebrates what makes SPAR unique and reflects what is meant by the famous strapline, ‘There for you’.

The new brand positioning has also set out three pillars in which SPAR’s actions now fall under. The ‘One Tree Planted’ initiative is an example of the ‘Nurture our Neighbourhoods’ pillar, in which SPAR is committed to adding value to the local areas they are part of. Planting these trees will help SPAR give back and positively impact local communities throughout Northern Ireland.

There is a long list of benefits to having more trees planted in Northern Ireland, from cleaning the air we breathe and filtering the water we drink, to providing habitats for the majority of the world’s biodiversity.

Bronagh Luke, Head of Corporate Marketing at Henderson Group which owns SPAR in Northern Ireland said: “At SPAR, our sense of responsibility for our customers and local communities can be traced back to the beginning of the brand and can be seen through our ongoing ‘Better Together’ and ‘Responsible Retailing’ strategies.

“People are at the heart of every initiative we take part in, and we are delighted that through this tree planting initiative, we can focus on the local community, health, the environment and building a more sustainable future for all.”

The initiative will see the first trees planted in September 2022, across the 300+ SPAR stores in Northern Ireland. For more, visit spar-ni.co.uk.

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As world leaders meet at the COP26 Summit in Glasgow, Tearfund has launched its ‘A Gift for your Neighbour’ campaign, partnering with SPAR, EUROSPAR and ViVO stores in Northern Ireland to help push vital funds towards the communities living in poverty around the world, and feeling the effects of Covid, conflict and climate change.

SPAR, EUROSPAR and ViVO will match donations made in-store or online, up to £200,000 from 01 November until 31 December 2021.

Bronagh Luke, Head of Corporate Marketing at Henderson Group met with Tearfund’s Northern Ireland Director, Glen Mitchell,to discuss how important the annual partnership is to communities around the world, especially in the face of various global emergencies.

“It could be easy to forget the different ways that the climate crisis impacts different communities around the world – however campaigns like this help us further understand the importance of reaching across the world and helping our global neighbours,” Bronagh said.

“Our shoppers have always been incredibly generous during our festive campaigns, and matching their donations will help reach communities who are facing these very real effects of global warming even further.”

Climate crisis

The appeal aims to help support communities like those on the coast of the Bay of Bengal, where families like Juliet’s are already living in poverty, and now the climate crisis is making things even worse for them.

Juliet’s family relies mostly on fishing and on growing crops like rice to survive, but an ever-increasing number of floods and extreme cyclones makes life very dangerous and it’s difficult to keep finding money to rebuild houses and replace belongings that are washed away.

Glen Mitchell, NI Director at Tearfund added; “We are so grateful to the generous staff and shoppers of SPAR, EUROSPAR, ViVO and ViVOXTRA who, again this year, are helping some of the people who live in greatest need around the world. The money we raise this year through ‘A Gift for Your Neighbour’ will go towards helping people like Juliet around the world.

“Tearfund’s partner in the Bay of Bengal has been able to help Juliet’s community find ways to stay safe when flooding comes, and also come up with different ways to earn more income to help them lift themselves out of poverty. Thank you for being a part of helping people like Juliet and her family!”

A Gift for Your Neighbour is now live, with donation boxes in SPAR, EUROSPAR, ViVO and ViVOXTRA stores throughout Northern Ireland, running until 31 December 2021.

Shoppers can also donate online and find out more via tearfund.org/SPAR.

Picture caption: Tearfund NI Director, Glen Mitchell and Head of Corporate Marketing at Henderson Group, Bronagh Luke, launch their Christmas campaign for 2021 – A Gift for your Neighbour.

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