9 March 2005 - Charity begins at work for DWP call centres
Celebrities will join hundreds of staff and their friends and families to man phones for Comic Relief as the Department for Work and Pensions makes hundreds of lines available across the country.
Fourteen DWP call centres will take part in the biggest TV fundraising event in the UK calendar on Friday after staff expressed their interest in contributing to the annual charity campaign.
An estimated 1,400 people will give up their spare time to take public donations from the call centres on March 11 in the non-stop seven hour phone-in. Call centres from Jobcentre Plus, The Pension Service and the Disability and Carers service helplines will all be contributing their ‘out of office hours’ service for free in a bid to raise record amounts for the Red Nose Day 10th anniversary.
Michele Settle, Comic Relief 's Marketing Director, said:
"Call centres have always been right at the heart of Red Nose Day and without their generous support in taking donation calls from the UK public, we could never raise the sort of sums we do. Comic Relief is delighted that the Department for Work and Pensions will have volunteers throughout the UK staffing the telephone lines to support our 10th anniversary of Red Nose Day on Friday March 11th."
On Red Nose Day everyone in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is encouraged to cast inhibitions aside, put on a red nose, and do something a little bit silly to raise money - including the Cheeky Girls, Verity from the X-Factor and the cast of Byker Grove, who will be among the celebrities answering the phones from the DWP call centres.
Red Nose Day 2005 is set to turn Friday into a feast of huge hair, painted faces and crazy clothes! RND'05 - Big Hair & Beyond …..Just Do Something is about changing the way you look for the day to transform someone else's life forever.
As if the perfect excuse to have fun with your hair, clothes and face wasn’t enough to make Friday a day to remember, it also marks the tenth ever Red Nose Day. To celebrate, there will be some tantalising TV treats, including ‘Little Britain’ specials; a specially recorded one-off ‘Vicar of Dibley’ and the return of ‘Comic Relief does Celebrity Fame Academy’.
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