ACTIONAID AND OVS TOGETHER THIS CHRISTMAS FOR ITALY’S FUTURE CHILDREN

ACTIONAID AND OVS TOGETHER THIS CHRISTMAS FOR ITALY’S FUTURE CHILDREN

From 12 November to 24 December, OVS will be collecting your old toys to support ActionAid’s ”Italia del Futuro” campaign

Stefania Rocca and Enrico Bertolino, ActionAid testimonials, will be donating their toys in the Via Torino store, Milan

#OVSperActionAid #ItaliaDelFuturo

This Christmas, OVS will be working with ActionAid: from 12 November to 24 December 2014, it will be collecting your old toys in its directly owned stores for donation to kids benefiting from ActionAid’s “Italia del Futuro” [Italy of the Future] campaign. The aim of the campaign is to counter the scarcity of available education services and educational-play opportunities in many marginal social and economic contexts in our country.

For every used toy they donate, customers will receive a voucher for 4 euros valid until 3 January 2015. OVS will then donate 1 euro to ActionAid for every voucher used and this will go to help financing for important activities such as supporting school meals and transport, teaching civic education and respect for the environment in schools, working to support families with their financial management, promoting healthy, sustainable eating, combating waste, and boosting language mediation and cultural integration. OVS will also contribute by making its own network of stores available for fund raising at its cash desks.

Stefania Rocca and Enrico Bertolino, testimonials of “Italia del Futuro”, already working for kids in schools in Aquila and Reggio Calabria, will be supporting the initiative by donating their old toys on Saturday 29 November at 16:30 in the OVS store, Via Torino, Milan, where they will also be inviting customers to make their own donations.

“We are absolutely thrilled to have a partner like OVS,” Marco De Ponte, General Secretary of ActionAid Italia tells us. “Thanks to this splendid initiative, we will be able to give a happy Christmas to lots of kids who we follow through our ‘Italia del Futuro’ campaign and who are living in very complex situations, in places such as Reggio Calabria, Naples or Aquila. With the cash donations from customers and the use of vouchers, we can carry out various projects to give these children access to a quality educational system”.

"The future is built by children and that’s why we need to look after their needs and also their dreams,” says Francesco Sama, Managing Director of OVS, “Supporting ActionAid on its ‘Italia del Futuro”’ campaign gives OVS the opportunity to help many children living in poverty, contributing to their education and, by collecting used toys, to keep some kids’ dreams alive. We’ll be making our stores available and involving our customers, who can also take part by donating money at our cash desks".

The OVS initiative for ActionAid can also be shared on social networks: with the #OVSperActionAid hashtag you can dedicate your own toy, with a Twitter or Facebook message, to the children from “L’Italia del Futuro”.

Vania Rinaldi vania.rinaldi@ovscorporate.it

Pamela Bertoldo pamela.bertoldo@ovscorporate.it