Danske Bank's Northern Ireland staff have raised over £75,000 to support vulnerable families and young people during the pandemic.
Families all over Northern Ireland have been hit by the pandemic, with thousands of redundancies being issued across the region and levels of child poverty projected to rise sharply. Danske Bank has being doing its bit to help improve the lives of the most vulnerable and isolated in our society, and has now announced that it's raised over £75,000 for good causes since the start of the pandemic.
The funds were raised as part of a year-long partnership with Extern NI, and included measures such as donating essential items to local families and donating advertising space to help people learn about Extern's hardship appeal. The group also raised funds from the sale of old IT equipment, and the bank directly donated £20,000 to support the charity.
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The £75,000 raised is funding the charity's coronavirus hardship appeal, which provides short and long-term support to vulnerable groups struggling due to the virus. Some of the funding will also go toward renovating the charity's respite centre at Kinnahalla in county Down, which provides crisis intervention and prevention services for young people aged 10-17.
Extern's Business Development Director Gavin Adams commented: "Our partnership with Danske Bank has been a vital support to Extern across the last year, particularly around the challenges presented by coronavirus. The fantastic fundraising efforts of Danske staff enabled us to quite literally save lives, and to make a real difference to families and people in our society who otherwise would have found things very difficult as a result of the pandemic."
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Aisling Press, MD of Personal Banking at Danske Bank added: "Despite increased pressures supporting our own customers and adapting to radically new ways of working, our colleagues recognised they could still play a part in giving back to society, get creative and came up with lots of innovative ways to raise money to help support Extern’s work, from a virtual marathon to TikTok and singing challenges, to quizzes and head shaves."
Source: Written based on press release
