Brighton call centre volunteers collect £66k for Sport Relief

Call centre volunteers in Brighton collected more than £66,000 for Sport Relief.

More than 100 staff at Domestic and general (D&G) gave more than 500 hours of their time to man the phones for the charity fundraising appeal.

Nationally the appeal last Friday (21 March) raised a record £53 million in total.

Locally the mayor Councillor Denise Cobb and Brighton and Hove Albion assistant head coach Nathan Jones – along with Seagulls mascot Gully – lent a hand.

Mayor Denise Cobb takes a call during Sport relief

The mayor took the first call of the evening. She also thanked D&G staff for supporting Sport Relief and helping those less fortunate than themselves.

D&G staff took part in a number of in-house fundraising activities in the week leading up to Sport Relief.

They included sponsored head shaving and chest waxing, a bake sale and tombola, throwing custard pies at bosses and a dress-down and pyjama day.

They raised a further £2,300 for the charity on top of the £66,282 that came in on Friday evening.

The charity aims to use the funds to transform the lives of poor and vulnerable people at home and in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Phil Baldwin, manager at D&G, said: “We’ve supported Sport Relief for eight years now as we believe it to be an incredibly worthwhile cause.

“This year we had 75 phone lines dedicated to the campaign and a record number of our employees volunteered to take the calls.

“The concept of doing something fun to do good is one we fully embrace and makes Sport Relief one of our most memorable nights of the year.

“We are also very grateful to all the local businesses that donated goods and services, which we were able to raffle off to volunteers on the night.”