What does donning a red nose have to do with helping children around the world? Thursday, May 26 is Red Nose Day, a campaign dedicated to getting “seriously silly” to raise awareness and funds to help children in need. Red Nose Day has raised over $1 billion globally in the last 25 years – now that is seriously amazing.
Red Nose Day in the United States supports 12 charities including Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, an organization working alongside the United Nations to help expand access to life-saving vaccines for children around the world. Through the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life campaign, we support Gavi in fundraising and advocacy efforts to further its ability to provide childhood immunizations for some of the world’s deadliest diseases.
Walgreens, the exclusive red nose supplier, has also been a great partner to the UN Foundation through the annual Get a Shot. Give a Shot™ campaign – enabling Shot@Life to support the delivery of millions of vaccines to children in the some of the hardest to reach places on the planet.
How do you get involved? It’s simple: Stop by your local Walgreens today to purchase your red nose, and share your selfie on social media using the hashtag #RedNoseDay. A portion of every red nose sale will support 12 amazing charities including Gavi.
And don’t forget to watch the NBC telecast on May 26 at 9pm EST to see celebrities and comedians perform in red noses and to learn more about the organizations involved in the campaign.
Red Nose Day is an example of a new era of engagement that brings together people, uniting them with innovative brands and policy leaders in a crowdsourced surge of support for an issue. These initiatives are ways we can leverage social media to share and grow as a community. As advocates for global issues that sometimes go missing in the headlines, Red Nose Day is a way to raise awareness and drive action for a better world!