Sustainability a major focus of our 17th year partnering with TK Maxx

In 2004, we joined forces with TK Maxx to raise awareness and funds for children’s and young people’s cancers. Since then, the leading off-price apparel and homeware retailer has raised over £40m for Cancer Research UK, of which £37m has supported research into children’s and young people’s cancers.

TK Maxx is currently our largest corporate supporter of research into this area. In 2018, they demonstrated their long-term commitment by supporting the Cancer Research UK Children’s Brain Tumour Centre of Excellence, which brings together expert researchers from across the globe to accelerate the development of better treatments, increase survival and reduce long-term side effects for children diagnosed with brain tumours.

Give Up Clothes For Good

At the heart of TK Maxx’s success is its nationwide campaign, Give Up Clothes for Good. The UK’s longest running clothing collection campaign encourages employees, customers and the public to donate their pre-loved quality clothes, accessories and homeware at any TK Maxx store year-round. These are then sold in our Cancer Research UK shops to raise funds for life-saving research into cancers affecting children and young people. Each bag could raise up to £25 for Cancer Research UK for Children & Young People.

Give Up Clothes for Good also provides environmental benefits by giving a new lease of life to items that might have otherwise ended up in landfill. Since 2004, their customers and associates have helped collect over 1.7 million bags of fashion and homeware. This amounts to over 8,800 tonnes of pre-loved items given that have been reused or recycled, or over 198,000 tonnes of saved carbon emissions.

Jo Murphy, Vice President of Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability at TJX Europe, said:

“We are incredibly grateful to our customers for helping us to transform the items they no longer need into funds for life-saving research. Not only are they helping more children and young people survive cancer, they’re also reducing their environmental impact by giving their pre-loved items another lease of life.”

An award-winning partnership

At Cancer Research UK, we’re inspired by innovative partners like TK Maxx whose commendable fundraising, which has sustainability at its heart, has not gone unnoticed by the industry. Our partnership won Retail Charity Partnership of the Year at the Retail Systems Awards 2019, while the Give Up Clothes for Good campaign was shortlisted for Best Green Initiative in recognition of the positive impact it has had on the environment.

It really is a win-win-win situation. By donating a bag of pre-loved quality fashion and homeware at a local TK Maxx store, you can say no to waste, reduce your carbon footprint and help more children and young people survive cancer with a good quality of life. So what are you waiting for? Give Up Clothes for Good!