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Getting Festive for Christmas Jumper Day

There is no ignoring the stark differences in Christmas Jumper Day this year compared to previous years. As many of us continue to work from home, the hype of Christmas Jumper Day was under threat. However, in true MVIS and Bartco UK fashion, we didn’t let COVID get in the way of our fundraising festivities.

As our chosen Charity this year, we opted to fundraise for Ashgate Hospicecare. Ashgate, our local end of life hospice, have had a very difficult year. The charity relies on several appeals through the year that have been extremely difficult to conduct in the usual way this year due to COVID.

We started raising funds for Ashgate earlier in year for the Sparkle Walk appeal. As a large local event, over the years, we have donated use of our signs to assist with promotion, wayfinding and traffic management for the event that usually saw thousands of Chesterfield residents march against cancer. However, with COVID putting up barriers for this, Ashgate innovated and moved to a virtual Sparkle event that engaged people digitally for the fundraising.

Still wanting to contribute, MVIS and Bartco UK decided to take part with our own challenge of 200 collective miles travelled and then a virtual Sparkle quiz with our own team, raising nearly £400 for the charity.  

Christmas Jumper Day 2020 saw members of our team from all levels of the business come together in spirit to celebrate Christmas as a workforce, as well as to celebrate the important time of giving that so many vulnerable and needy people rely on for generosity.

This year, the Bartco UK and MVIS staff raised £16 for Christmas Jumper Day, which considering our small team, is a modest but respectable effort from the people who were available to take part.

This amount, plus the rest that we have raised this year will help make a difference to local patients and families who need specialist hospice care.

Anne Ashman, UK Group Commercial and Operations Director commented, “Christmas Jumper Day is a great opportunity for us to give back to the world whilst letting our hair down a bit and bringing some Christmas cheer to our working lives. Whilst our team is split across the country right now, it’s great seeing them come together by taking part and helping people at the same time.”

Anne continues. “Picking our yearly Charity is always a difficult decision. With all the worthy causes that existed before COVID, the scope of who needs help this year has grown beyond anything we could have expected. But then hearing of the very local plight of one of our palliative care institutions, it seemed the right thing to do to select Ashgate as our Charity in 2020.”

• More information about Ashgate Hospicecare
• Donate to Ashgate