A Million Ads are donating a fantastic £10,000 from their fundraising for & halow & as Charity of the Year 2021. Funds were raised through & employee fundraising and corporate match-funding.

Funds were raised by various employee's completing sporty challenges as part of their ‘Bye Bye Blues’ initiative during February, to combat the gloomy weather and do something positive, including:

• Shair and team took on the challenge to run 400km in just 14 days and raised a brilliant £160

• Mohan aimed to raise money for a group day out and raised an amazing £605 by running 100km over two weeks

• Steve came up with the innovative idea to run a route on the streets of New York to spell the name of whoever donates the most to him, which was £382. He spelt out halow on one of his runs too!

• Kate completed a marathon in two weeks and managed to raise an outstanding £4376.

Kate kindly shared how and why they chose to support halow:

In January 2021, we asked everyone at A Million Ads to nominate a charity that they have a connection to. We then held a Lunch & Learn session where every nominator would have 5 minutes to talk about their chosen charity and what the cause means to them. We then take a vote and the most voted charity, wins! Kitty nominated the halow project as she has a very personal connection, her sister Lolachops (Laura) is one of the 5 young people that brought inspiration to their parents to start the halow project.

In January 2022, we wanted to do one last push of fundraising around 'Blue Monday', the time of year where we’re supposedly feeling most blue and at our lowest. While there is no scientific studies to prove this is true - 'because mental health doesn’t choose days' - we wanted to get people out and moving. We kicked off a two-week fundraising event called Bye Bye Blues, where we made a pledge and then raced at our pace. Some of our pledges included: walking 50km, running 80km, running 100km - no mean feat during cold January!

We're proud to say we raised a grand total of £10,000 and we're delighted it's going to such a wonderful cause.

Thank you so much to all the A Million Ads team for your donations and brilliant fundraising ideas. We are so grateful for your support!