Starbucks donates £175,000 to community charities across Europe this Christmas

This Christmas, Starbucks has donated £175,000 to charities across Europe that were nominated by its customers and partners (employees) as part of its festive giving initiative, #GiveGood.

In the UK, 210 community charities took part in a local charity initiative, #CheerforGood, in partnership with Neighbourly.com, which saw nearly 60,000 tweets shared by supporters across the country spreading the cheer and raising awareness for local causes. The top 30 charities whose supporters ‘cheered’ the loudest on Twitter have been awarded a grant of £2,000 each, with the remaining charities all receiving £500 for taking part.

Sarah Wolf, Wiltshire Search and Rescue, which helps the emergency services to find missing and vulnerable people, said: “Cheer for Good has given us both a platform, and a reason, to shout about the great work we do. We hope to be able to start putting money towards new digital radios that will ensure we can better communicate with each other, and the emergency services. We are on call every day of the year and this money will keep us out on the ground for some time to come.”

Jo Whitfield, B-EAT, a charity that supports people with eating disorders, said: “Cheer for Good has been such a fantastic opportunity for B-EAT, and the support from the Bath High St Starbucks team has been amazing ! The grant will help us to provide support to people affected by eating disorders over the Christmas period, which can be an incredibly difficult time.”

Tom Reeves, Free Radio Mission Christmas, a charity that aims to make a difference to the lives of disadvantaged children in the West Midlands, said: “As a charity we rely heavily on the kindness of local people and local businesses. Starbucks and Neighbourly are clearly champions of that ethos! We had great fun on our #CheerForGood day, interacting with Starbucks customers and telling them all about Mission Christmas which aims to get gifts to the 1 in 3 children in Birmingham STILL living in poverty. The grant will help buy gifts for the age groups who often get forgotten about, the very young and the over 10s. This will mean so much to so many.”

Store teams also hosted fundraising events for each of the charities nominated in stores across the UK, Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna, Geneva and Zurich. Charities used the occasion to raise awareness and fundraise in a variety of ways. The Austrian store teams donated a giant blanket knitted by the community and their customers to homeless charity – Caritas de gruft.

Martin Brok, president Starbucks Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), said: “Right across our business in Europe we’re proud of the connections we’ve made with local communities this Christmas. In the UK, we were thrilled to see the number of tweets shared using #cheerforgood almost double as part of this year’s Christmas community campaign - helping local charities, nominated by our partners and customers, to raise awareness and funds at this critical time of year. We look forward to building on these charity partnerships, and continue to support community projects all year round.”

Starbucks will continue its partnership with Neighbourly.com in 2018 to support and raise the profile of the UK’s smallest charities that do vital work in their local communities, all year round.