RiskLine Oxted have raised a huge sum of money
in the first 3 weeks of the year to recruit and train volunteer
counsellors for ChildLine’s London Advice Centre. The total funds
raised in just 3 weeks is £3,200 which, when matched by the
Towergate Charitable Foundation, will pay for 4 additional
volunteer counsellors helping 800 children who may otherwise not
have been get to get through. ChildLine is presently only able to
handle 66% of the calls made to them as they simply do not have
enough volunteers.
This fund raising effort is all the more
remarkable as Team Towergate RiskLine raised an additional £730 for
Shooting Star Children’s Hospice in January 2010. RiskLine Oxted
staff and clients contributed nearly £50,000 to good causes in
2009.
Towergate RiskLine’s Managing Director, Nigel
Palmer and Charity Champion, Rob Ashburn, visited ChildLine’s
regional advice centre in London’s Folgate Street at the beginning
of the year and became acutely aware of the need to speed up the
rate of recruitment of volunteer counsellors. Agreeing a target of
putting one new counsellor on the phone every month the team set
about upping the fund raising for ChildLine whilst maintaining
support for their local children’s hospice, Shooting Star.
Nigel Palmer said: “we realised that we could
make a huge difference to the lives of thousands of children and
sat down and agreed with our team that in 2010 we would cut the
number of unanswered calls into ChildLine as well as continue to
support the wonderful work at Shooting Star. I am delighted with
our start to the year.” At this rate of recruitment Towergate
RiskLine’s fund raising could pay for the recruitment of 48
counsellors, who would typically help 9600 children.
Rob Ashburn
Charity Champion Towergate RiskLine
Oxted
