Charities

"At Hippychick we strongly believe in giving back. From our earliest days we’ve been committed to supporting causes close to our hearts at an international, national and local level. Being free to do this is without doubt one of the best things about having our own company." Julia Minchin

There's nothing like a giant panda to get us all 'oohing' and 'aahing'. Some say it's because pandas resemble ourselves, they sit up and eat a bit like we do. Others say it's all in the eyes - pandas have large, round eyes which remind us of children.

In the run up to Christmas 2017, for every Panda Wheelybug and Panda Nattou Rocker sold, Hippychick donated £1.00 to the Royal Zoological society of Scotland (RZSS) to support specific projects associated with giant panda conversation. Whatever the reason for loving giant pandas, the fact of the matter is that they are listed as a vulnerable species and only around 2000 now remain in existence in the wild. Thanks to the efforts of these conservationists, the number of these pandas is slowly increasing, but there is still a lot of work to be done to keep this species going.

If you would like to support RZSS further, please visit rszz.org.uk

We were delighted to support Educate the Kids as our Charity of the Year in 2016/17. The vision of this wonderful charity is to see the children or Africa have their needs met, their rights upheld and their dreams fulfilled.

The Charity was founded by Maureen and Ian McIntyre in 1998 after visiting Kenya and being moved by the poverty, poor health and lack of basic facilities. Maureen set up the charity and sponsorship programme offering the poorest children access to a good education in the area of Utange, near Mombasa.

For more information you can either visit the website or like EducatetheKids on Facebook for regular charity updates

We chose Children's Hospice South West (CHSW) as our chrity of year for 2015/2016. CHSW supports over 180 life-limited children, that sadly will not reach the age of 19, at their specialist hospice. They are there for the whole family, right from the point of diagnosis, CHSW is a safe haven for families who face the most difficult road imaginable.

More than 2000 people registered for the Hippychick sponsored Santas on the Run event in Bristol that year.

Also, as part of our partnership, the entire office took part in a £50 challenge! The challenge urges businesses to think as creatively as they can to invest the money and turn it into a much bigger amount in just three months. In an interesting twist, two teams from Hippychick took the challenge, the 'Hippy Chicks' and the 'Hippy Chaps!' Although the chaps took an early lead, the chicks turned it around last minute to get the victory with over £1200 raised for the charity.

Make–A–Wish Foundation® UK – Our First Ever "Charity Of The Year" For 2012

At Hippychick we’re committed to improving the quality of family life and to making it fun, which is why we were so delighted to have tied up with the fantastic Make-A-Wish as our first ever ‘Charity of the Year’ in 2012. We managed to raise well over £11,000 by the end of the year with fundraising initiatives including sky diving by two brave members of the Hippychick team, a constantly full clothing bank, coffee mornings, and donations linked to sales of Wheelybugs and Hipseats.

Laura Fisher at Make-A-Wish summed it up: “Thank you so much for all your support over the last year and for sending across the highlights of your campaign. We really do not under estimate the achievement. Hippychick have done so well and from a standing start to raise over £11k is really terrific!”

International

Hippychick were delighted to have paid for the monthly maintenance, including clean filters and uv lamps, of a Water House in a secondary school, located in one of the deprived areas of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Water Houses are connected to the main city water system. Sadly the pipes within the city are very old and unclean, and therefore contaminate the water. The Water Houses provide a system of filters and uv lamps which purify the water to provide clean drinking water for the children. According to Field Director, Philippa Vernon-Powell, this particular Water House provided approximately 1,168,000 cups of clean drinking water a year to the 1,340 students and teachers! https://www.facebook.com/newlifemexicoFor fifteen years a percentage of all of our profits went to New Life Mexico – an award winning British Charity - which supports vulnerable children and young people in Mexico through health, education and social programmes. To find out more about the work of this amazing charity go to www.newlifemexico.com.

National and Local

We supported the National Charity, Epilepsy Action, through sales of our best selling Dream Tubes brand this year from May 17, the start of National Epilepsy Week, through to June 17 2015. We were delighted to help, albeit in a very small way, raise funds for their vital work in helping the estimated 600,000 affected by the condition in the UK. www.epilepsy.org.uk.

From time to time we hold very popular end of line sales at our office (keep an eye on our website and Facebook pages for details!) with a share of sales going direct to the NSPCC, www.nspcc.org.uk and local, Somerset based St Margaret’s Hospice, www.somerset-hospice.org.uk. Three members of the Hippychick team (Julia, Frances and Rose) recently trained hard and took part in a Triathlon to raise money for the NSPCC.

We are also huge admirers of the work done by another local charity, the voluntarily run adoption agency, Families for Children www.familiesforchildren.org.uk. This inspiring organisation has in the last five years alone, placed over 200 children from throughout the UK who have experienced loss and upheaval, with stable and loving families in Devon, Dorset and Cornwall.

We try to support this wonderful work in whatever way we can. The children they place are from all over the UK and are found new adoptive families in Devon, Dorset, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Many of the children placed are vulnerable and have complex extra needs resulting from early childhood traumatic experiences, including abuse, neglect or extreme changes in their lives. Jeremy recently pushed himself to new physical limits doing their sponsored Two Moors Walk – from the South Devon to the North Devon Coast – a whopping 116 miles in 3 days, with Julia helping to organise fundraising events and activities! A huge thank you to all the kind friends, customers and businesses who helped us raise many thousands!

If you are a charity that would like to be considered for a charity partnership, please contact: enquiries@hippychick.com.