Press Release

6 August 2010

Family fun day raises £10,000 for Acorns Children’s Hospice

Over £10,000 was raised for the Acorns Children’s Hospice after two Birmingham workmates organised a family fun day for their colleagues and business partners. 

Paul Goacher and Tammy Stretton, who work for strategic outsourcing firm MITIE, held the event at Aston University recreation ground, raising £10,300 for Acorns Children’s Hospice, which provides care for children with life limiting or life threatening conditions. 

The day involved plenty of activities to keep the whole family entertained, including face painting, balloon modelling, a rodeo bull ride, Indian head massages and bouncy castles, with BBQ food and refreshments to keep energy levels up throughout the day. 

A charity football match was the day’s centrepiece, with MITIE employees from the local Brownhills office playing against a sub-contractors team. With plenty of support from the sidelines, the MITIE team won the match with a comfortable 10 – 0 score line.

MITIE’s local contractors and suppliers contributed towards sponsoring the event to help raise money for Acorns Children’s Hospice, MITIE’s nominated regional charity for the Midlands. The hospice is close to the heart of many people working for MITIE in Brownhills who have had family members cared for by the hospice. 

Speaking after the event Paul Goacher, managing surveyor at MITIE, said: “It was a great day and I’m thrilled how much money was finally raised for Acorns. Huge thanks must go to everyone who sponsored the event and came down on the day to support us.” 

Mike Tague, Regional Fundraising Manager, Acorns Children’s Hospice, added: “This is awesome: a fantastic effort, which will help continue the specialist support and care that we provide for local children and their families here at the hospice.

“Acorns is currently caring for nearly 600 children who have life limiting or life threatening conditions and 800 families, including those that are bereaved. There is no charge to families for using the services but it does cost £450 per day for each child’s care. Acorns relies on donations like this for the majority of its income.” 

MITIE carries out the repair and maintenance work to public buildings for both Walsall and Birmingham City Council’s as part of a five-year contract and regularly works with subcontractors on a range of projects. 

-ENDS-

Notes for editors

What is MITIE?
We’re the strategic outsourcing company. What does that mean in practice? We manage facilities, properties and assets for our clients across the UK and beyond.

We work with our clients in three ways; some take full advantage of our whole range of expertise, others may only need one aspect of what we do:

Strategy and consultancy
+ Facilities and project management
+ Service delivery

Our strategic input can add value at the highest level by helping clients to manage their assets, while our practical management expertise can save customers money and reduce their carbon emissions. We work with a vast number of clients in every industry across both the public and private sectors and deliver the broadest range of services that can be found in one place: from integrated facilities management to engineering maintenance to lifecycle energy management and much more.

There’s a lot more to MITIE than you probably think. We’re a big company with big ambitions – a leading FTSE 250 support services business, with more than 56,000 people, revenues in excess of £1.7bn, and a reputation for being the best.

Visit us at www.mitie.com 

For further information, contact:

Sarah Bainbridge, Property Management Marketing Manager, MITIE Property Management
T: 0203 123 8680 M: 07901 330833, E: sarah.bainbridge@mitie.com 

Erica Lockhart, Investor, Public & Media Relations Manager, MITIE Group PLC
T: 0203 123 8675 M: 07979 784488 E: erica.lockhart@mitie.com