• About us
• Contact us
• Subscribe
• Advertising
• Accessibility
• Bulletins
• Newsfeeds

• Register
• Login

Celebrities: Sir Elton John, Liz McClarnon, Jeff Stelling, Jonathan Edwards

By Andy Ricketts, Third Sector, 9 February 2010

Sir Elton John

Famous names support their favourite charities this week

Liz McClarnon, the TV presenter and Atomic Kitten singer, has become an ambassador for Age Concern and Help the Aged.

Before she joined the girl group, McClarnon said, she helped out at the care home where her 102-year-old great-grandmother lived before it closed and she had to leave. Her great-grandmother died a few months later. She is encouraging people to take part in the Liverpool Half Marathon to raise funds for the charity, which will become known as Age UK in the spring.

Countdown presenters Jeff Stelling and Rachel Riley have donned woolly hats in support of the Sailors' Society Woolly Hat Week campaign, which takes place between 7 and 13 February.

The charity is encouraging people to wear woolly hats in return for donations, and Stelling and Riley were wearing theirs on the edition of the Channel 4 quiz show broadcast on 8 February.

Singer and songwriter Sir Elton John will top the bill at Caudwell Children's annual fundraising event on 20 May. John will perform at the charity's Butterfly Ball in London in front of guests including charity ambassadors model and actor Elizabeth Hurley and actor Joan Collins. Last year's event raised £1.7m for the charity, which provides direct donations of treatments, therapies and specialist equipment for sick and disabled children in the UK.

Former triple jumper Jonathan Edwards took part in a parliamentary reception recognising the work of sports charity StreetGames last week. Edwards, who won gold at the Olympics in Sydney in 2000 and has held the event's world record since 1995, was joined by Ben Bradshaw, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

A host of celebrities, including actors Sir Roger Moore, Emma Thompson and Imelda Staunton and rock couple Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, are backing the British Heart Foundation's Red for Heart campaign, which will be launched this month. Activities include National Wear Red Day on 26 February.