Stakeholder

Sainsbury’s stores across Northern Ireland have a host of activities planned to try to raise their regional target of £50,000 for Sport Relief.

A number of Sainsbury’s store managers and senior colleagues are getting on their bikes in a similar type of feat to David Willaims and his celebrity friends. They will be cycling almost 300 miles through Scotland and Northern Ireland. The cyclists will cycle 52 miles to the port in Scotland on 14th March, get the boat across to Northern Ireland and will start their tour on Monday 15th March at Larne port. They will cycle for four days around each of the Northern Ireland Sainsbury’s stores finishing in Ballymena on Thursday 18th March. Each of the stores will be supporting the cyclists by hosting a spinathon, cycling the same distance at the store on each of the days.

Justin King, Chief Executive of Sainsbury’s will also be joining colleagues for one of the many Sport Relief Mile events on Tuesday 16th March at 8pm at the Holywood Exchange store. He will be joined by store colleagues, local media and local politicians. Justin King is running 32 individual Sport Relief Miles in different regions across four days. People from right across Northern Ireland will also have an opportunity to show their support for Sport Relief by joining the official Northern Ireland Mile at Custom House Square on Sunday 21st March.

Neil Chason, regional operations manager for Sainsbury’s Northern Ireland added, “We are really looking forward to a couple of weeks of fantastic fundraising activities here in Northern Ireland. The money raised will change so many lives not just here but for some of the most vulnerable people right across the world. We are delighted to have Justin King joining us for some of our events and many of us are looking forward to taking part in the cycle. For those who want to show their support in other ways we have lots of exclusive Sport Relief merchandise in store including the really fun red and white Sport Relief socks priced at £2 with at least £1 going directly to Sport Relief. We really hope that people from right across Northern Ireland will help support us in the different local activities we are doing and will give our cyclists some encouragement if they see them on the journey across the north.”

With the theme of this year’s Sport Relief campaign being, ‘Rise to the Challenge,’ colleagues at the Sainsbury’s stores will be doing just that with each store having its own specific target. Many events are planned at the stores including competitions, karaoke, Wii Fit Olympics, football matches, quizzes, sponsored silences and much more in the hope of beating the £2.3 million raised across the UK by Sainsbury’s for Sport Relief in 2008.
This year, some of the money raised for Sport Relief will be put to good use locally as Belfast based charity Belfast Activity Centre is one of the recipients of Sport Relief funding. The charity supports a Domestic Violence Project.

Eleana Curtis, store manager of Sainsbury’s Holywood Exchange is taking part in the cycle. She said: “In 2008 Sainsbury’s colleagues helped raise a fantastic amount for Sport Relief and this year we hope to top it! Supporting this well loved charity is not just an opportunity to transform lives in some of the world’s poorest countries but also a means of helping our local community as Northern Ireland based charities like Belfast Activity Centre can also benefit from funds raised through Sport Relief.”