Red Nose Day breaks record despite recession

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 25 Mar 2009

Nearly £60m has been raised for Comic Relief in a record-breaking fundraising weekend for the charity.

This year’s Red Nose Day fundraising figure comes in significantly ahead of the previous top haul of £40.5m in 2007, despite the country being in the grips of recession and rising unemployment.

At the busiest point of the fundraising telethon on Friday March 13, BT call centre staff handled an average of 250 calls per second, taking a total of 656,649 calls throughout the event.

The Red Nose Day television show featured top performers such as actor David Tennant, model Kate Moss and singer Tom Jones.

In addition to the money raised via the telethon, more than £3.3m was raised by celebrity hikers, including Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Cole (pictured centre), partaking in BT Red Nose Trek, a sponsored hike to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Co-founder and vice chairman of Comic Relief, Richard Curtis said: "It is just incredible to see such a huge amount of money given by the public again on Red Nose Day. Red Nose Day is 21 years old this year and its success is down to the unrelenting support and ingenuity of our supporters – it belongs not to the comedians, but to the people who give.

“It’s wonderful that, in more difficult times, people seem to understand that the need increases for people whose lives were impossibly tough in the first place. The work this money funds helps change and save lives all over Africa and the United Kingdom.”

Directory: BT | Comic Relief
Who's Who: Celina Ribeiro

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