O2 Glasgow to support the Bothwell Animal Centre as project of choice in 2008

18 February 2008 – Staff at O2’s contact centre in Glasgow will be raising funds to create a new exercise area at the Scottish SPCA’s Bothwell Bridge Animal Welfare Centre over the next year. Since the start of the year staff at the Skypark base have been nominating charities and voting for which one they want to support throughout the year. Four projects were short-listed – Tak Tent, Riding for the Disabled, Glasgow Simon Community and the Bothwell Bridge Animal Welfare Centre and over 540 O2 staff voted for their favourite. The Scottish SPCA site was the winner with 34%. As the O2 site project for the year the Bothwell Bridge Animal Welfare Centre will be able to create a new covered exercise area for dogs. This will allow dogs to integrate with each other and create a more relaxed kennel environment and help in the re-homing process. Thanks to a sale of old and disused phones by O2’s Value Development Team last week the team in Glasgow have already raised over £2600, well on the way towards the £15,000 target. John McGuigan, who heads up the O2 fundraising Community Crew on site, said: “I am delighted that we will be supporting the Bothwell Bridge Animal Welfare Centre over the coming year and I know our staff are excited about getting on with raising as much cash as they can for the project. Working with a local project makes the result of fundraising even more special and we are also looking forward to rolling up our sleeves and becoming directly involved in the project as well. “Deciding which project to work with was extremely hard and I would like to wish all the finalists every success. I am sure the £1000 donation we have given to each runner-up organisation will help them towards making their plans a reality.” Michelle Feenie, Scottish SPCA Head of Marketing and Fundraising commented: “Everyone at the Bothwell Bridge Animal Welfare Centre is ‘over the moon’ that the O2 staff voted to raise funds to create a much-needed exercise area. The Scottish SPCA cares for over 12,000 animals every year, with the staff at Bothwell Bridge caring for around 3,000 animals and all this is made possible by support from Scotland’s animal lovers. “It costs around £9 million every year to run the Scottish SPCA and as the Society receives no government or lottery funding, it is the public and the wonderful efforts of people like the O2 staff that enable us to carry out our work for Scotland’s animals. “Our thanks to everyone at O2 for their support.” The decision to support a local project marks a step change in the way O2 raises funds for charity. For the past three years the company have worked with a single UK charity partner but decided to give staff at its five main sites across the country the opportunity to raise cash for a project of their choice, in their local area. The Big Site Project aims to raise over £15,000 for the Bothwell Bridge Animal Welfare Centre and is part of the wider It’s Your Community programme, which allows groups, organisations and charities to apply for awards ranging from £100 to £1000 to make a difference within communities. As part of the decision process each of the runner-up projects were given a £1,000 It’s Your Community award as recognition of their fantastic project. For every online and text vote cast O2 gave a donation of 50p to the chosen project. – ends –