WRVS is hoping to engage thousands of supporters in a new tea-based fundraising event in the style of Macmillan’s coffee morning.

The volunteering charity has launched the WRVS Great Brew Break, which will run from 29 April to 5 May and will see WRVS supporters hosting tea events to raise money for the charity.

This will not be the first hot beverage-based fundraising event on the UK charity calendar. Macmillan’s World’s Biggest Coffee Morning has been a phenomenal success in recent years, with the 2012 event raising just shy of £15m – a nearly 50 per cent increase on the 2011 total and £7m more than was raised in 2010.

Tea has played a constant role in WRVS activities, the charity says, with volunteers handing out cups of the stuff during World War II and in the present day serving “tea and sympathy” in its hospital shops and cafes around Great Britain.

WRVS has not set fundraising targets for Great Brew Break, but hopes to raise “a significant sum”. The event will be promoted to existing supporters via direct mail, emails and social media and to a wider audience through a PR push to local and national media. However, the charity will not be advertising the new event.

A spokeswoman for the charity told civilsociety.co.uk that WRVS expects there to be at least 1,300 events around the country – that’s one for every WRVS service – but hopes many more will be run independently of the services. The charity is recommending that event hosts charge £1 per cup of tea and has developed fundraising packs for hosts to raise more money. 

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