On your marks, get set, go! are words still ringing in the ears of ByBox staff following yesterday's exhilarating Tour de Box fundraising challenge.
Monies raised to date are now in excess of £3900 and funds are still coming in.
Over 60 ByBox staff formed themselves into three teams (Red, Blue and Yellow) each of whom competed to raise money for Coventry based Zoe's Place.
And in the true spirit of the ByBox ethos of meeting challenges head on, the Tour de Box event pushed the boundaries to the limit with a mix of tasks which included cycling, kayaking in inflatable rafts and riddle solving before a final cycle sprint back to the Coventry Distribution Centre with the blue team winning hands down followed by the reds and yellows. Touch FM Breakfast Presenter Brody Swain presented the prizes.
The newly opened Zoe's Place is the first of its kind in the area and is dedicated solely to the respite and one-to-one palliative care of babies and children under the age of five with life-threatening or life-limiting illnesses and special complex needs.
With the facilities to care for six babies at any one time, the hospice is expected to benefit an estimated 40 families a year. Its running costs exceed £700,000 a year, with most of the funding through public donations.
Zoe's Place started taking patients in July. Features inside the hospice include specially-made cots, a multi-sensory pod with soft play equipment and adapted toys.
Stuart Miller, ByBox' Co-founder and CEO commented: "The Tour de Box concept is a means of engaging staff whilst at the same time putting something back into the community
"The day was great fun with everyone getting involved whether it be taking part directly, following in the support vehicles or simply cheering their teams on and the fact that we have been able to raise a substantial sum for such a worthy cause is fantastic.
"We also owe a huge thank you to those who have already generously supported including Jaspers, First Project Maintenance, Unipart Technology Logistics, InTouch, Century PR and Solutions Consultants."
Founded in 2000, ByBox has transformed the field services market with its innovative solution of delivering overnight, pre-8am to a network of 18,000 drop boxes at 1,350 locations, ready for an engineer to start work.
Additionally the company has recently expanded into the consumer market with online retailers such as figleaves.com offering customers free drop box delivery as an option at one of its 300 consumer friendly locations. To further extend the network of drop boxes across the UK an agreement has recently been formed with Network Rail to install drop boxes at all mainline stations and Royal Mail will shortly be rolling out its 'iBox' solution at 17 mainline train stations in London and across six other key cities, in conjunction with ByBox. The trial is set to run for six months.
In just a decade the company has grown to become a £37 million turnover business, making 20 million deliveries a year and has recently expanded into the Republic of Ireland, France and the Benelux.