Stacey Snaps Up £500 Cookes Voucher

Burntwood resident Stacey Judge, is celebrating the New Year in style after receiving £500 worth of Cookes Furniture vouchers.

Cookes Furniture, Marketing Director, Vanessa Hoe said: "As an ongoing main sponsor of the Fun Run, Cookes Furniture has first hand experience of the huge effort made by many participants to raise funds for charities, voluntary organisations and community interest groups.

"We wanted to encourage each of the 6000 who registered in 2011, to raise sponsor money - which after all is the key objective of the Fun Run."

With this in mind, Cookes challenged each entrant to go that little bit further and raise a minimum of £20 in sponsor money to help those very worthwhile organisations even more and help make 2011 another record breaking year.

A delighted Stacey said: "It was a huge surprise when I received the letter from Cookes telling me I'd won £500 of vouchers. At first I thought it may be a hoax, but when they phoned to arrange a time to collect the voucher, I realised it was true.

"I've traditionally raised money for children's charities, which is why my friends and I at Dollyrockers Body Piercing Studio in Birmingham city centre chose to support NSPCC. We even ran an in-store promotion with £2 from every piercing from customers going into our charity pot.

"It was the first time I've participated in the Fun Run. I'll certainly be back in 2012, this time supporting Acorns Children's Hospice and I'll even be encouraging some of the customers to join the team.

"It's great to participate in a huge event close to your home town and to be able to raise money for a charity close to your heart. The atmosphere on the day is really good and I'd recommend anyone to enter in 2012."

Fun Run Event Director, Tracey Spare said: "The Fun Run will always have at its core, the objective of encouraging entrants to raise sponsor money for charities and voluntary organisations.

"Cookes Furniture has been a wonderful main sponsor of the Fun Run and the Cookes Charity Challenge has been an important initiative over the last couple of years to encourage everyone who enters, to raise some sponsor money."

Vanessa Hoe concluded: "Having spoken with representatives of some of the 240 charities, voluntary organisations and community interest groups to benefit this year, I know the Fun Run plays a very important role in their fundraising effort, particularly the smaller groups who may not have the resources of the national organisations.

"As a Main Sponsor we were thrilled that Fun Run entrants raised a record breaking £228,000 in 2011. The Fun Run has now distributed over £1.24 million since 2003 which is a wonderful achievement and Cookes Furniture is proud to be associated with an event where so many people work so hard for the benefit of those less fortunate than most of us."

caption:James Pike, Logistics Director Cookes Furniture presents the voucher to Stacey Judge