Like the story of James Everest, a Special Olympics Great Britain athlete who has fought all over the world in judo competitions, despite his profound learning disability and behavioural problems.

After joining his foster brothers’ judo club as a young boy, James stuck at the sport despite losing every competition to other children. His enthusiasm inspired his club to move into coaching children with disabilities and they approached Special Olympics GB, who made them an official SOGB club. James’ foster parents took him and other athletes with learning disabilities all over Europe, competing in countries such as Holland, Belgium, and Finland, although it wasn’t until James was invited to go to China as part of the SOGB team did he bring home his first ever medal – a Gold one nonetheless!

Thanks to Special Olympics GB, James is one of the thousands of people with learning difficulties who have discovered new abilities and talents and become advocates and role models in their communities.

“James has gone on to inspire many parents and athletes at our club, becoming a junior referee for the British Judo Association refereeing both main stream and special needs competitions.” says James’ foster brother and SOGB Technical Advisor for Judo Paul Everest.

The thousands of pounds raised every week by Domino’s customers choosing to round up their orders helps SOGB put on training sessions and competitions, which are often the only opportunity that athletes have to interact with other people and feel part of their community.

Special Olympics GB are aiming to grow the programme from 8000 to 20,000 athletes by 2013 and the donations made through Domino’s are vital to achieve this goal. So next time you’re at the checkout at www.dominos.co.uk remember that you can help transform the lives of people like James by a simple click of the Donate button.

Read our news from February about Domino’s customers making one million donations to charity.

The Pennies scheme, which launched 17 months ago, gives consumers the simple option to donate a few pence to charity with a single touch of a button when they use a debit or credit card to purchase goods and services.

All the money raised goes to charity, with the retailer nominating the charities they want to support with the majority of donations they collect. The remaining money raised is shared amongst charities that cover a broad range of causes designed to appeal to a mass audience. The capacity to give in this way is incredible. If every one of the 43 million cardholders in the UK gave 30p once a month (equivalent to a penny a day), it would raise more than £150m a year.

Alison Hutchinson, CEO of The Pennies Foundation, commented: “We have been delighted to see the public embracing micro-donations and joining the Pennies movement. The money raised so far is already making a big difference to so many people’s lives. We look forward to seeing that £500,000 figure continue to rise, as more retailers switch on Pennies and more charities benefit.”

To date Pennies has supported 29 charities, large and small, with some receiving significant sums. Domino’s Pizza was the first retailer to adopt the Pennies scheme in November 2010 and their nominated charity Special Olympics GB (Northern Ireland customers donate to Northern Ireland Children’s Hospice) has received over £185,000 which they are already using to deliver a range of projects including a scheme to recruit up to 12,000 additional athletes with learning difficulties and 2,500 new volunteers.

Pennies is already available in ten national retailers including Domino’s Pizza, Zizzi restaurants, Travelodge, GO Outdoors and Screwfix as well as a number of smaller merchants, and momentum is growing as more and more retailers switch on Pennies.

Kingfisher group’s Screwfix recently became the latest retailer to switch on Pennies. John Mewett, Marketing Director for Screwfix, said: “We believe that Pennies is a really simple and sustainable way to offer our ongoing support to our nominated charity Everyman. We were delighted by the immediately positive response from our customers which exceeded our expectations. Once added together their pennies will make a huge difference to the great work that Everyman does.”

Therefore, we were especially excited to hear that donations made through Pennies are also helping Great Ormond Street Hospital update their vital equipment and facilities.

Since August 2011, customers at The Entertainer have been able to donate their spare electronic change when paying by card at the till – altogether these pennies have added up to £22,000 for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity. This significant amount will go towards replacing current inpatient facilities and the building of a new kidney centre as part of the wider redevelopment of the hospital.

Each year, 7,000 children suffering from serious diseases of the kidney are treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital receiving world-class care from specialist medical teams. New facilities at the hospital will allow room for more modern equipment and space for a parent to stay overnight beside their child’s bed – something so important for a child’s recovery, particularly after surgery. New conditions will also offer better working conditions for staff.

These fantastic new facilities will benefit patients like Emma who had to be in hospital over Christmas after a kidney transplant and had Christmas dinner with her family in the canteen. The new centre will mean more privacy and space for her and her family.

So next time you’re picking out a toy at one of The Entertainer stores, remember that the pennies you’re able to donate at the till can add up to thousands of pounds and help children like Emma get the best services they can.

Read our news from January about The Entertainer customers reaching the £100,000 milestone in just six months, all from small change donations.

Every minute of every day someone affected by a life-threatening cancer contacts a charity because they need advice, information or just want a chat. Macmillan Cancer Support, one of the charities to benefit from donations through Pennies, provides a Support Line service for people affected by cancer who need some help – this could be a patient, a carer or a relative of someone with cancer.

The money raised for Macmillan through Pennies has so far helped this vital service run not for minutes or hours, but for more than a day, touching the lives of around 350 individuals because your pennies donations have contributed over £10,000 to date and the support line costs Macmillan £8,843 to run every day replying to around 329 calls and emails.

The Support Line gets a huge range of queries, from questions about claiming benefits to worries about how to talk to children about a terminal diagnosis. One of the people who answers these calls is Cancer Information and Support Manager Zoe. Along with her colleagues, Zoe works to ensure that anyone who calls up gets all the information and help they need from the whole team at Macmillan.

“We don’t just deal with the patient, we deal with everyone affected by cancer,” says Zoe. “So it could be that sisters, mums, dads, children call us, talking about their feelings or wanting more information to support the people affected by cancer.”

Hear Zoe tell her story about how she helps deliver this service in the video below.

For many of the people who benefit from Pennies donations, having the chance ­to relax and meet others who share similar experiences and emotions is incredibly valuable.

Pennies beneficiary Children’s Burns Trust does just that. Its Family Therapy Programme brings together NHS professionals and families with a child who has been injured through burning or scalding. The charity hosts weekend events where parents, children with burn injuries and their siblings can meet other families in a similar position.

We’re pleased to say that your pennies have so far amounted to £10,000 for Children’s Burns Trust, which is the equivalent to the cost of 12 families attending these programmes.  This would largely cover the expenses of the programme for a whole year! Did you imagine your spare change could have that impact when you donated through Pennies?

As well as giving children time to enjoy animal rescue centres or circus entertainment, these weekends offer mums and dads some adult time to meet other parents of children with burn injuries. Many parents can experience a sense of guilt surrounding the circumstances of their child’s accident and programmes like these give them a chance to meet people who can understand the emotions involved. For many, it’s a chance to learn about how others have managed with their child and to gain more knowledge about scar management and different healing processes.

The next event is being held this weekend on 27-29^th April, and Pennies was delighted to hear that one of the hospitals taking part is in fact another Pennies beneficiary, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool. Along with patients from three other hospitals, families and staff from Alder Hey will get to enjoy a weekend of visits to see some animals, have fun at a circus and relax over a nice meal – all with the help of your pennies!

Find out more about how the Children’s Burns Trust works in partnership with NHS professionals and other groups to support children with burn injuries and their families.

One of the helplines that your spare change contributes to is the AdviceLine service provided by Carers UK.  AdviceLine is a crucial way for some of the 6 million carers in the UK to get the correct advice and information they need.

Although Carers UK is more often associated with older carers, its services are also used by younger people who look after siblings or parents. Amy, 18, gave up a career and university course to care for both her mother who was disabled by a severe stroke, and her sister Katie who has cerebral palsy. Amy phoned the AdviceLine after she had received the wrong information about the support to which her family was entitled. Carers UK were able to make sure she had the right advice and provide her with easy to understand information about who she should contact and what her family’s entitlements are.

Carers say that good quality advice and information like this is the most important thing that helps them in their caring role. The AdviceLine is one of the specialist ways Carers UK provides this information but to keep it running funds have to be raised from voluntary sources and the general public.

Your pennies can really make a difference for carers like Amy who use the service. An information pack that is sent out to every carer following a letter, email, or phonecall like Amy’s costs Carers UK around £5. The money donated so far through Pennies has amounted to £10,000 for Carers UK, helping them to ensure that nearly 900 carers get the advice and information they need.

Find out more about Carers UK and the people they support with the help of your pennies.

The NSPCC is one of the charities to share 25% of every donation, which means that every time you decide to give through Pennies you’re helping them provide important services and supporting their campaigns to raise awareness of child welfare. So far, £10,000 has been raised for the NSPCC through Pennies.

For twenty years, the NSPCC’s helpline service has been a point of call for people worried about the safety or welfare of a child. Callers contact the helpline about a range of concerns, from worries that a parent isn’t coping or noticing a child has been left alone at home for long periods of time.

However, figures from 2011 showed that over half the people who contacted the NSPCC that year had been worried about a child for at least a month before they made the call. To highlight this and to urge people to trust their instincts, the NSPCC launched a new campaign in March 2012 called ‘Don’t wait until you’re certain’. Part of the campaign is this video, made by the director of Misfits and Skins, Amanda Boyle.

Supporters can also get involved through a facebook app designed specifically for this campaign.

The donations you make through Pennies help the NSPCC deliver this campaign and support vital services like the helpline to advise concerned callers. The money raised so far for this charity is equivalent to the cost of helping helpline counsellors make 500 referrals to children’s services. These referrals can potentially protect 1,000 children so next time you decide to give through Pennies, think of the reach your spare change could be having.

Read more about the NSPCC and the work they do.

Find out who else joined Pennies alongside Contact Lenses Express in March and which charities they are supporting.

When Wallace &Gromit’s Grand Appeal, an organisation that shares the donations from The Entertainer and raises funds for Bristol Children’s Hospital and St Michael’s Special Care Baby Unit, told us the story of Evie and her parents it reminded us of how vital the services are that your pennies help to keep going.

For the first five months of her life, baby Evie’s home was in the neonatal intensive care unit at St Michael’s Hospital in Bristol.

Born more than three months early, Evie certainly was little (she weighed 1lb 9oz) and the consultant explained to the family that the chances of her survival were about 50/50.

The next months were full of dramatic events, including Evie suffering a brain haemorrhage, but thanks to the medical team and the specialist equipment available at the unit, Evie and her parents Sarah and Matt are now home having cuddles on the privacy of their sofa for the first time.

“The other day as I was holding her I felt tears come down my face because I was so happy,” Sarah said.

“The day after we came home I thought ‘I just want to stay at home’, which we had not been able to do for five months.”

As one of four hospitals to benefit from money raised by customers at The Entertainer, £20,000 of the total £100,000 raised has gone towards helping families like the Harris’ through the Cots for Tots Appeal.

Part of Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, the Cots for Tots Appeal recently reached its target of £1million and a new suite of  four life saving intensive care cots is now open which will allow up to a further 150 more babies to be treated on the Unit.  A new 12 bedded family accommodation facility is soon to be open after Easter. This will allow parents of the babies being treated on the Unit to be able to stay free of charge close by in a home from home environment.

Well done to everyone who fundraised for the Cots for Tots Appeal, including all those customers who chose to round up their purchases at The Entertainer – you have helped to improve these vital neonatal services that save the lives of little babies like Evie.

Here Sarah talks about their experiences at St Michael’s and watching her daughter pull through.

The next phase of the Cots for Tots Appeal will be to  fundraise £200,000 a year to support the ongoing costs of the Family Accommodation Unit to ensure that South West families will have access to free home-from-home  accommodation;  and also to support the continued developments on the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St. Michael’s Hospital.

To find out more about the Cots for Tots Appeal visit their website at www.cotsfortots.org.uk

Screwfix has been working with Everyman since 2009, raising much needed money and awareness for the appeal which was set up by The Institute of Cancer Research in 1997 to eradicate testicular and prostate cancer. Over the last two years, Screwfix has used its profile in the male dominated construction industry to make men more aware of the symptoms of prostate and testicular cancer, and the serious health implications of not detecting the signs early.

Everyman receives 75% of donations from Screwfix.  The remaining 25% will be shared amongst other UK charities, including Shelter, Together for Short Lives and the Children’s Burns Trust.

John Mewett, Marketing Director for Screwfix, said: “We believe that Pennies is a really simple and sustainable way to offer our ongoing support to Everyman. We know that the most common form of cancer in men is prostate cancer and Screwfix’s large male customer base allows us to really reach out. We believe that our customers pennies will quickly add up, magnifying the fundraising efforts of our staff to make a huge difference to the great work that Everyman does.”

‘We are really pleased Screwfix has chosen to support the Everyman appeal through Pennies, and hope customers will get involved in this great initiative’ said Nicola Ashby, Corporate Fundraising Executive, The Institute of Cancer Research

Alison Hutchinson, CEO of The Pennies Foundation, commented: “We are thrilled that Screwfix has become the fourth retailer this month to join the Pennies movement.  It is wonderful to introduce micro-donations to a new audience in support of the Everyman appeal, which resonates so well with Screwfix customers.”