Navigation Toggle Icon

Unite Students Pass £1m Donation Milestone After Students and Employees Raise £250k for the BHF – 7 February 2018

7 February 2018

Unite Students is proud to announce that it has now raised £1.17 million for charities since 2014 through student and employee fundraising and the value of in kind donations. Most recently, Unite has been working with the British Heart Foundation to improve research and survival chances for those suffering from heart conditions and heart disease.

Unite partnered with the British Heart Foundation (BHF) from the 1st of January 2017, raising a Unite record of £272,700 in 2017 through stock donations such as clothing, electrical items and other household goods. Over 18,000 bags of stock donations were collected, the equivalent to the weight of 24 elephants in waste diverted from landfill. This also saved 1.46 million kgs of CO2 greenhouse gas emissions.

BHF experts also trained 540 students and staff across 29 Unite properties in ‘Call Push Rescue’ cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training. CPR improves survival rates of those suffering an out of hospital cardiac arrest. Currently, only 1 in 10 people in the UK will survive such an emergency, but immediate CPR can double their chances of survival.

John Blanshard, Student Experience Director, Unite Students, commented:

“It is important to Unite Students to encourage sustainable living practices with our students. The BHF partnership allows us to do this, and use our position to improve the lives of others. It has also been rewarding for our 540 members of staff and students who are now trained in CPR and take those skills back to their communities where they could just save lives. We are proud to have helped raise such a large amount in stock donations to aid this vital research.”

Mike Taylor, Retail Director, British Heart Foundation, commented:

“On behalf of the BHF I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has contributed to the partnership, encouraging your customers to donate their unwanted items for us to sell throughout our network of shops and which so far has helped raise an incredible £272,000, which has far exceeded our expectations for the first year. This money will help fund vital research into cardio vascular disease in Universities across the UK.”

 

For further information, please contact:

Allison Parkes-Norris, External Communications Manager                   

Tel: +44 7715798151

Tom Milsted, External Communications Executive                                

Tel: +44 7935504692