Toyota Forms National Charity Partnership with Guide Dogs

Toyota (GB) and Toyota Financial Services have formed a new national charity partnership with the charity Guide Dogs, which helps people with sight loss to live with freedom and confidence.

In the UK today, almost two million people are living with visual impairment and of those around 180,000 rarely leave their homes unaccompanied. For more than 85 years Guide Dogs has provided crucial assistance and individual support.

Jayne George, Guide Dogs’ Director of Fundraising and Marketing said:  ‘We are delighted to be working with Toyota as its new charity partner.  At Guide Dogs, we want everyone who experiences sight loss to live a full and rewarding life and this partnership will make a vital contribution to our work.’

Paul Van der Burgh, Toyota GB President and Managing Director, said: ‘We are delighted to support Guide Dogs, an excellent organisation which, like Toyota, is committed to helping people enjoy independence and freedom through mobility.’

Representatives of the charity and some of the guide dogs themselves recently joined Toyota staff at a ceremony to launch the two-year partnership at the company’s Surrey headquarters. Guide Dogs were selected as a charity partner directly by Toyota’s employees who were able to nominate and vote for their preferred good cause.

Toyota and its staff members will be raising funds for and awareness of Guide Dogs’ work in a range of events. These will include the Toyota Directors’ Challenge in April, when senior executives will walk and cycle the length of Hadrian’s Wall. In the summer a team will undertake the annual Toyota Oaks long-distance cycle ride, travelling a 250-mile route to France.

ENDS

To find out more about Guide Dogs go to: http://www.guidedogs.org.uk/