Since 1999 Gumball 3000 has used its media awareness and high profile network of friends, associates and Gumball alumni to promote worthy causes. Over the past decade we have worked closely with several charities and have organised dinners, parties, photo shoots, auctions and events in support of the following causes:
Make a Wish Foundation
We have supported the Make-A-Wish Foundation since our first event back in 1999, that year funding the wishes of several children to become racing drivers for a day. We have since worked with the Make-A-Wish Foundation many times, including donating the auction proceeds from the sales of original Gumball artwork by Stewart Walton and Adam Bricusse.
And most recently, we organised for Spice Girl Mel B to meet Make-A-Wish benefactors, and to sing Christmas Carols at Selfridges department store in London, also collecting the proceeds from all store donations.
Everyman Cancer Research
Everyman's mission is to cross out male cancer. They hope to achieve this by making everyone recognise the tell-tale signs, and understand the importance of treating them. By increasing this awareness they also hope to raise money to fund their life-saving research.
Eve Appeal
Gumball VP, Julie Brangstup, is both on the committee and a big supporter of the Eve Appeal, which is the only UK charity dedicated to funding research into all four gynaecological cancers.
About Kids In Need...
We are five entrepreneurs who have founded an association in Denmark, called ”Kids in Need”.
We want to support and help children and young people, who experience great emotional desertion from their parents. Typically their parents are alcoholics, drug users or other kinds of misusers. These kids are perhaps accommodated outside their own homes with foster families or at homes for children – or it may be kids, who otherwise have been exposed to desertion and a poor childhood.
The association are giving economically support to various, already existing projects, plus through our own social and sports related arrangements. We are trying to give the kids successful experiences and good advice so that they can develop more courage to change their course of life.
Gumball is the proud sponsor of the Water Aid & Big Issue charity football team. The team play in a charity league and raise funds and awareness for their respective charities throughout the year.
Stay Strong Stephen
Maximillion competed in freestyle BMX competitions as an teenager, and is still as passionate today about BMX as anybody could be, counting many of today’s leading riders as close personal friends. Last year, one of the sports legendary riders, Stephen Murray, suffered a horrendous accident in competition that has left him paralysed from the waist down.
Stephen was not only a friend of Max’s, but also a Gumballer, having participated in the last stage of the 2003 rally from New Orleans to Miami with fellow BMX rider Cory Nastazio, FMX Metal Mullisha Tyler Evans, and Snowboarding legends Tina Basich and Tara Dakides in a 2003 Jesse James customised VW Eurovan.
Following Stephen’s accident, not only suffering the unimaginable loss of mobility, Stephen’s insurance policy left him high and dry. Not only to encourage and support Stephen to make a recovery, the ‘Stay Strong Stephen’ Foundation was set up to support his family, and also to benefit others in similar situations manage financial affairs and to stay strong.
In July 2007 Gumball supported a BMX Jam to raise money for Stephen, and we have also contributed and donated to other Stay Strong events. We are extremely proud of Stephen for everything that he has already achieved in life, and we have no doubt that he will continue to achieve remarkable things in the future. He is one of the strongest characters alive, and we will continue to support him and his family throughout his recovery.
