As part of the ‘Rio Roadshow’ taking place from June 20 until 22 July, Suez employees will run, row and ride the equivalent distance from London to Rio de Janeiro – a total of 5,761 miles.
This event follows on from the company’s Big Ride event in 2014, which raised nearly £90,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support (see letsrecycle.com story).
David Palmer-Jones, chief executive of Suez recycling and recovery, said: “We want to do something similarly sporting this year, which would involve as many of our 5,500 employees as possible.
“However, with it being an Olympic year, the event had to have an Olympic theme, so we set ourselves the ambitious target of ‘getting to Rio’ – covering nearly 6,000 miles by human power alone.
“I would like to thank of all the sponsors, who have generously contributed to make this event happen, and I really believe we can exceed the high fundraising benchmark we set in 2016.”
Goal
The company has set a goal of raising £75,000 from the roadshow. This figure will be made up of individual sponsorship, raffle ticket sales, competitions, fancy dress and bake sales
A special ‘carnival bus’, decked out with exercise equipment, will travel to 130 of SUEZ’s locations over the five-week period in a continuous roadshow – starting in Inverness, Scotland, and finishing in St Erth, Cornwall.
Participants at each location will seek individual sponsorship to rack up as many miles as they can on the equipment before the bus moves on, although they can also contribute miles accrued doing other sponsored activities – which so far include serious endurance tests, such as a 70-mile “ultra-marathon” and a hike across the Glens of Scotland.
Suez
Suez will also hold a nation-wide raffle for all of its employees and has donated a top prize of a trip for two to Brazil, while many of the company’s suppliers, customers and partners have donated other raffle prizes.
Vehicle supplier MAN Truck & Bus UK Ltd, which supplies many of Suez’s heavy goods and plant vehicles, has provided a HGV tractor unit for the duration of the event, while trailer supplier Acquila, has provided a hospitality trailer to host the exercise equipment, which was refitted and serviced by Truck Engineering.
S&B Commercials PLC has also donated a smaller second vehicle which can access SUEZ sites that are too small to accommodate the bigger carnival bus.
Rhys Parker, corporate partnerships manager at Macmillan Cancer Support, thanked Suez for its support, and highlighted the important work that the charity carries out in tackling the disease.
He said: “More than two million people are currently living or beyond cancer, and that number is set to rise to four million by 2030 and almost one in two of us will get cancer in our lifetime. It’s the toughest fight most people will ever have to face, but they don’t have to go through it alone.
“We’re delighted and extremely grateful that Suez and their employees continue to support us as their charity partner and hope everyone will get involved with this year’s event to raise much needed funds for the millions of people affected by cancer.”
For more information about the cancer charity, go to Macmillan Cancer Support.
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