Member Article

Local Customer Services Workers Set to Scale Three Peaks for Charity

Two Sunderland customer service centre workers will complete a gruelling physical challenge to help raise thousands of pounds for charity Marie Curie.

Michelle Robinson and Alison Huggins, who work at EDF Energy, are set to take part in the Three Peaks Challenge to fundraise for the charity.

The charitable pair have already exceeded the original fundraising target of £2,000, with almost £3,000 donated so far. However, this has just spurred on their work colleagues to raise even more money for Marie Curie.

Staff at EDF Energy boosted the fundraising by recently holding a dress down day, bake sale and tombola at the Doxford International Business Park office in support of the Three Peaks Challenge fund.

Michelle and Alison, who are both 30 and from Sunderland, will scale three of the highest peaks across the UK, including Snowdon in Wales, which reaches 1085 metres, England’s Scafell Pike, which reaches of 978 metres, and Scotland’s Ben Nevis, the highest of the three at 1344 metres.

Michelle, who has been a customer service advisor at EDF Energy for 8 years, said; “Myself and Alison have both lost close relatives to cancer, so we wanted to do our bit for Marie Curie as we believe it is a very important charity.

“I am nervous about doing the challenge as it’s something I have never done before, however I have been doing a lot of walking and running to prepare for a gruelling couple of days.

“We have already reached our fundraising target on our just giving page through donations and fundraising, which is great and gives us even more encouragement to do well in the challenge.”

The event will be a race against time, with a limit of 24 hours to climb all three peaks. This will be completed over two days to allow travel time between each peak on 3rd and 4th May.

EDF Energy announced a three-year charity partnership with Marie Curie in 2013. As well as supporting the charity through volunteering, the energy company aims to raise £600,000 for Marie Curie over the period of the special relationship. This includes EDF Energy match-funding its employees’ fundraising by up to £100,000 each year.

So far, EDF Energy have raised £181,000 for Marie Curie, almost doubling their yearly target.

Marie Curie provides nursing care and support to people with a terminal illness, supporting them in their own home or at one of the charity’s nine hospices. In County Durham, Marie Curie nurses provided more than 14,000 hours of care and supported more than 400 terminally ill patients in 2011/12.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by EDF Energy .