Tesco Dance Beats donates £2 million for leading health charities

Tesco’s Dance Beats fundraising campaign raised £1million through customer and colleague donations.  Tesco also donated £278.30 for every colleague, family, friend and customer who took part in the Guinness World Record dance marathon relay at Wembley Stadium, which equates to a further £1 million.  The £2 million total will be split between leading health charities Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation and Diabetes UK.

Throughout June and July, Dance Beats brought the nation together to have fun, keep active by showing off its dance moves and raise millions of pounds for three important causes. People were invited to get behind the fundraiser in several ways, including dancing down the aisles in Tesco stores to taking part in a World Record dance attempt at Wembley Stadium.

Represented by thousands of Tesco colleagues, members of the public and celebrities, including Kimberly Wyatt and Aston Merrygold, Dance Beats broke the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS® title for the longest dance marathon relay. Thousands of dancers generated an average of 1.66 million steps an hour (10,000 steps per dancer) across the epic 30-hour Wembley challenge.

This coincided with local dance events in Tesco stores up and down the UK whereby local dance groups and colleagues performed throughout the July 18- 20 weekend.

In turn, more than 10,000 people accepted Oti Mabuse’s online Dance Challenge this summer, posting their versions of the Dance Beats signature ‘Pump and Slide’ dance move (choreographed by Oti) using the official #Tescodancebeats hashtag and triggering a £10 Tesco donation per post.

Dave Lewis, Tesco CEO, said:“Our colleagues always go the extra mile to support great causes and in our Centenary year we wanted to come together to put on our biggest ever fundraiser. With the support of our customers, we raised over £1 million for three amazing charities; and to help celebrate our Centenary I’m delighted to announce we’re going to donate an additional £1 million, which recognises the nearly 4,000 colleagues, friends, family and customers who broke the Guinness World Record.  A massive thank you to everyone who took part and made this such a memorable weekend to help beat cancer, beat heart diseases and fight diabetes.”

Michelle Mitchell, Cancer Research UK chief executive, Simon Gillespie, British Heart Foundation chief executive, and Chris Askew, Diabetes UK chief executive, jointly commented: “The life-saving work of Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation and Diabetes UK would not be possible without the support of the public so we want to say a huge thank you to the thousands of Tesco colleagues and customers across the UK who got involved in Dance Beats.

“The money raised through the incredible dancing and fundraising will help fund our vital work to improve the lives of those affected by cancer, heart and circulatory diseases and all types of diabetes.”