McColl’s Retail Group has raised £173,000 for the Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) charity.

Throughout October, staff fundraising events and customer support through in-store donations and by purchasing the special campaign magazine helped to raise £173,000 for the TreatCRY initiative, which hopes to reduce the number of young people who die suddenly from undiagnosed heart conditions.

McColl’s chief executive James Lancaster, who lost his son to sudden cardiac death in 2007, praised the initiative. 

“It really is wonderful that we have again raised such a large amount of money for this campaign and the ongoing mission to reduce incidence of young sudden cardiac death,” he said. “Seeing such a large amount raised through the hard work of colleagues – many of whom organised some fantastic in-store events – and the generosity of McColl’s customers makes me immensely proud,” he said.

CRY chief executive Alison Cox MBE said: “TreatCRY was a really exciting venture for us when we first launched it with McColl’s last year and we were delighted when the retail group decided to repeat the campaign for a second year running.

”Yet again, thanks to the commitment of their staff, managers and extremely loyal, local customer-base they were able to generate huge awareness for CRY in neighbourhoods and high streets across the UK – as well as a staggering fundraising total.”