Customers shopping at The Entertainer have donated more than £250,000 to the toy retailer‘s charity partners using an electronic ‘spare change‘ donation system.
Pennies, the electronic system which encourages customers to make small donations when paying by credit card, has collected more than £250,000 since its launch in The Entertainer last summer.
The toy retailer, which has 78 stores across the UK, was the first high street retailer to enable the micro donation scheme, which has now spread to such national chains as Domino‘s Pizza, Travelodge, Monarch Airlines, The Fragrance Shop and DFS.
The Entertainer‘s Managing Director, Gary Grant commented: “People are inclined to be generous, and we have seen them display this generosity since the launch of the partnership with Pennies.
“Our traditional charity boxes would generate less than £2,000 a year so it has been tremendous to see the donations come in so quickly and easily with the electronic charity box.”
Last week almost £15,000 was donated via Pennies, a leap up from the original weekly average of £2,000.
Nearly half of those Entertainer customers who could donate in December chose to do so, and the average donation was 30p.
The majority of donations are divided equally between four children‘s‘ hospitals: Liverpool‘s Alder Hey Imagine Appeal; Birmingham Children‘s Hospital; Wallace & Gromit‘s Grand Appeal for Bristol Children‘s Hospital; and Great Ormond Street Hospital Children‘s Charity.
Commenting on the record donation, The Pennies Foundation‘s CEO, Alison Hutchinson said: “It has been inspiring to see the speed in which the donations have flooded in during December.
“Customers of the Entertainer have always been generous, but they are even more so during the festive season.
“This is wonderful because those Pennies really add up and are already making a difference at the four children‘s hospitals.”
