With an average of 38 million visitors passing through every year, Birmingham’s Bullring is one of the UK’s top shopping destinations, boasting continual footfall and awealth of promotional opportunities. This is welcome news for local charity Ladies Fighting Breast Cancer, which has been announced asthe centre’s Charity of the Year.
From now until April 2015, Ladies Fighting Breast Cancer will be official charity partner to Bullring, helping to raise funds for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham through a series of events and activities. Tim Walley, General Manager at Bullring, commented:
“We’re proud to announce that this year we will be working with Ladies Fighting Breast Cancer as our charity partner for 2014/15. It’s a fantastic charity that provides vital support to those diagnosed with Breast Cancer as well as helping to raise awareness of the disease.”
Ladies Fighting Breast Cancer was set up in 2000 by Veronica Kumeta and the late Sue Macmaster, after their friend Carol Knaggs was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Having raised money for Breast Cancer before the idea was to control where the money went, rather than giving it to national charities, so they contacted the Queen Elizabeth Birmingham and started working exclusively with them. Sadly, Veronica lost both Sue and Carol to the disease but continued running the charity, as a volunteer, and along with her dedicated team of supporters has raised over £1 million for the hospital.
“Words cannot describe how excited I am that Bullring has chosen Ladies Fighting Breast Cancer as its charity partner. As the UK’s only regional charity for Breast Cancer, we pride ourselves on supporting our local hospital and making a difference to patients who come from a 70 mile radius. We have already helped fund over £1 million worth of vital equipment and we launched our £1 Million Appeal to raise more money and provide services that go beyond the means of the NHS. This partnership with Bullring allows us to get our message out to hundreds of thousands of people every week many of whom, I am sure, have been touched by this terrible disease. I really want to make the most out of this opportunity and not only raise awareness of Breast Cancer but also smash our target,” says Veronica, founder of the charity.
Ladies Fighting Breast Cancer launched its £1 Million Appeal in October 2011 with the aim of funding a new patients’ lounge, not-for-profit hair salon for cancer patients, beauty treatments, mastectomy room and diagnostic suite on site when the Breast Unit moves to its new location at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital next year. The money raised will also help fund asecond mobile mammogram trailer, helping to take medical services out to the community.
Lord Digby Jones, Patron of the charity, launched the Appeal:
“The charity partnership between Bullring and Ladies Fighting Breast Cancer is amazing! So many women (and note a few men…..a little known but important fact) in Birmingham will benefit directly from this. Breast Cancer MUST and WILL be defeated, but only by initiatives such as this raising long-term funds. As the Patrons of LFBC we thank Bullring from the bottom of our hearts. The opportunities this partnership presents are so many; the profile it provides is huge. Another sign of Birmingham coming together to “do it for Brum”… thank you!”
The Bullring partnership will form a large part of exposure of fundraising efforts for the charity over the coming year, in addition to its own events. For more information on all events, visitwww.ladiesfightingbreastcancer.org.uk and www.bullring.co.uk.