Rain, a campaign and a marathon

Posted 20 April 2012, 0 comments

By Lauren Devereux, Media Intern From our Media team

Our intern Lauren Devereux writes of the Fair and Square campaign launch, preparation for the London Marathon and, at last, steady rain.

Today we’re pleased to present the second story from our Media Intern Lauren Devereux. (Please read her introductory piece.)

Before leaving sunny Southern California for my term abroad, I was given numerous condolences about the weather that I was about to expose myself to. Mind you, Los Angeles only has a yearly average of 35 days with notable precipitation. ‘It’s going to be like... really rainy and cold’ and ‘I hope you have a cute rainjacket!’ were some of the ridiculous warnings that I received before my departure.

Ironically, the city of London experienced serious water-depletion issues during my stay, and I can count on one hand the number of rainy days. That is . . . until this week.

You know that expression ‘When it rains, it pours’? Not only has this week’s brutal London weather fully supported this cliché, but so have the last few days at work. What a terribly exciting week to be working on the media team for The Children’s Society.  Not only was our major report released and covered extensively by numerous press outlets, we are steadily approaching the biggest fundraising event in Europe.

In Fair and Square, our campaign launched yesterday, The Children’s Society stated that more than half of all children living in poverty go without free school meals. Furthermore, the government’s benefits system could end up discouraging parents from finding or taking on more work, because the loss of free school meals support outweighs the gains through higher earnings.

These startling statistics sent the media into a frenzy, with dozens of newspaper articles, 69 radio broadcasts and hourly coverage on the BBC. That’s more coverage in a few hours that I’ve seen acquired for the last few weeks. Raining press cats and dogs, if you will.

The Virgin London Marathon is taking place this weekend, and we are lucky enough to have 77 runners representing The Children’s Society this year. With a target at over £130,000, this is one of the biggest annual fundraising events for the charity. I got the chance to interview some of the runners and construct press releases accordingly, and help draft a crisis management plan for the day-of.

With a full work plate and a rain-soaked jacket, I had yet another week without a single dull moment.

By Lauren Devereux, Media Intern

Please read Lauren's introductory piece.