Sports Relief & DragonBoats

On a bright sunny afternoon on Monday 19^th March the CEO of Sainsbury’s Mike Coupe and Sainsbury’s staff joined Pool of Life, Breast Cancer Survivors Dragon Boat Team for a fun afternoon of racing and fundraising for Sports Relief at Liverpool’s Watersports Centre.

Pool of Life are the nominated Charity of the Year for Sainsbury’s East Prescot Road, Liverpool Store and we have joined forces on a number of occasions to raise awareness of BCS paddling and to also to raise funds to keep our wonderful floating support group going. 

Sainsbury’s are the official partners of Sports Relief and this year have raised over £6 million pounds for this worthwhile charity.  Mike Coupe, CEO decided to do a tour of the country to see what his stores were doing for Sports Relief and wanted to get involved in some unusual fundraising activities.  When he heard about Pool of Life he decided he would love to give dragon boating a try! 

With just 12 days’ notice we managed with the help of Amathus DBC to pull together a charity regatta with two full boats to race.  Staff from stores around Liverpool were invited to join us and Pool of Life girls rapidly put in leave requests to their workplaces.  The result was a fabulous afternoon on the water having a few practice runs, then two hard fought races resulting in a draw with one win each!  The afternoon was finished off with a quiz, Easter raffle, mountains of cake and a vat of hot soup. 

Mike and the staff of Sainsbury’s had a fantastic afternoon and a video has been made for the Sainsbury’s staff.  Mike was presented with a limited edition print of a Chris Bibby painting of Pool of Life which now hangs proudly in his office.