-First staff fundraising event raises more than £4,000 -

Staff from The Random House Group have voted in their hundreds for children’s hospice service, Shooting Star CHASE to be the focus of their charity support this year. Shooting Star CHASE supports over 600 families in western London, Surrey and West Sussex; in their own homes and at their two children’s hospices, in Hampton and in Guildford.

Each year Random House staff are invited to suggest charities that they would like the Group to focus support on for the year, which inform a shortlist put to the staff vote. Earlier this year Gail Rebuck, chairman and chief executive, The Random House Group presented the 2011 staff charity, Freedom From Torture, with a cheque for £24,500, and Kids Company and Médecins Sans Frontières have also been beneficiaries in recent years. 

The Random House Group has previously supported Shooting Star CHASE by taking part in events such as the Catteshall Stroll, a 10-mile walk in memory of former Random House Group Managing Director Peter Bowron whose family has received much valued support and care from the charity since his daughter Anna was born with a rare chromosomal defect.

The first staff fundraiser of the year, the annual Random Ramble, was held on Friday (18thMay) when more than 130 staff from The Random House Group’s Pimlico and Ealing sites embarked on a 7-mile riverside walk, culminating in Hammersmith.    The event raised more than £4,300 for Shooting Star CHASE.

Gail Rebuck said: “It is wonderful to see so many staff getting involved with our charity selection each year.  Shooting Star CHASE provides an extraordinary level of care tohundreds of families, including the Bowrons, and I am delighted that we are supporting them in 2012.”

Jeremy Payne, Director of Fundraising and Marketing at Shooting Star CHASE added: “Shooting Star CHASE is delighted to have been chosen as Random House’s Charity of the Year so our heartfelt thanks to everyone that voted for us. Most of us cannot really imagine what the families that use our service are going through but what is absolutely clear is that we couldn’t continue to provide that service without this kind of generous support from organisations and ordinary people.”