NEW YORK (AP) — An edible, life-sized cookie of the contest winner and a car-crushing monster truck ride are two of the new prizes up for grabs in the Red Nose Day 2024 campaign, which ramps up Thursday.
As Comic Relief US's fundraising initiative for underserved American children enters its 10th year, the charity is hoping to draw donations by encouraging the childlike wonder that millions of poverty-stricken kids might miss. First disseminated through clown-like schnozzes at Walgreens locations, the message is spreading this year through Instagram sing-alongs, a sweepstakes and new partners such as Lego.
It’s all an effort to “evoke the childhood dream of whimsy,” Comic Relief US CEO Alison Moore told The Associated Press.
In 2022, child poverty doubled in the United States, as pandemic-era benefits expired, adding relevance to the mission. Since 2015, Red Nose Day has raised $370 million to stock community food centers and fund local health workers, among other anti-poverty measures worldwide.
Through June 3, contributions on Red Nose Day’s website will unlock an entry into a “Childhood Dreamstakes” for one of six experiences that hope to stir the fanciful wishes of youth. In addition to the cookie and the truck, donors could win an edible cotton candy castle, a personalized hot air balloon ride, a giant model volcano eruption or “a trip to befriend a penguin.”
Planned with help from creative agency Gus, the campaign expects that the “fun-filled moments” will highlight the importance of a “healthy, fruitful childhood” and “creating space to let kids be kids.”
“To us, it’s a reminder of the carefree happiness every child deserves, and the childhood sense of fun and wonder that’s inside us all,” Gus co-founder Spencer LaVallee said in a statement.
Comic Relief US is once more relying on entertainers to generate awareness. Halftime skills challenges during the Harlem Globetrotters’ domestic tour featured a custom Red Nose Day basketball. Longtime partner NBC plans to celebrate the decadelong drive with a one-hour special Thursday including “The Voice” coaches John Legend, Chance the Rapper, Reba McEntire and Dan + Shay.
As in recent years, Comic Relief US is foregoing the physical red nose once available to Walgreens customers. What’s new are interactive filters that place digital ones on users’ faces across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat. Pets should even be able to don a virtual red nose on the latter two platforms.
While the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is again backing the campaign, the push is also aided by first-time corporate collaborations with some kid-friendly brands. Aimed toward field trips, Lego's “The Biggest Build” challenge will invite students to design their dream communities at 14 museums around the country. Chuck E. Cheese locations are soliciting round-up contributions at checkout this month and donating 20% of participating sales on Thursday.
Others in the philanthropic sector credited Comic Relief US for staying authentic to Red Nose Day over the past 10 years. The tactics won't work for every fundraiser, said Elevate Prize Foundation CEO Carolina Garcia Jayaram, who founded the nonprofit supporting social entrepreneurs.
But Jayaram said fundraising is about meeting people where they are — and comedy and popular culture have proven to be successful avenues for drawing attention toward childhood poverty.
“There's not nearly enough money being pumped into these solutions,” Jayaram told the AP at the nonprofit's annual Make Good Famous Summit on Wednesday. "I wish we didn't all have to get out there and do a big song and dance for all that money. But if it works, it works.”
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Associated Press writer Glenn Gamboa in Miami Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
This undated combination of images provided by Comic Relief's Red Nose Day shows social media users taking selfies with the campaign's filters. (Comic Relief's Red Nose Day via AP)
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Chinese Premier Li Qiang said he agreed with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday to properly manage their nations' differences as they emerge from a hostile era in which minister-to-minister contacts were banned and trade barriers cost Australian exporters up to 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year.
Li, Albanese and senior ministers of both administrations met at Parliament House to discuss thorny issues, including lingering trade barriers, conflict between their militaries in international waters and China’s desire to invest in critical minerals.
Li, China’s most senior leader after President Xi Jinping, arrived in the South Australian state capital of Adelaide on Saturday and the national capital of Canberra late Sunday in the first visit to the country by a Chinese premier in seven years.
Li told reporters after Monday's meeting that the bilateral relationship was “on the right track of steady improvement and development.”
“We ... had a candid exchange of views on some differences and disagreements and agreed to properly manage them in a manner befitting our comprehensive strategic partnership,” Li said through an interpreter.
Albanese described the discussions as “constructive.”
“Australia advocates that we should all work together to promote a regional balance where no country dominates and no country is dominated,” Albanese said.
“I’ve made it clear as nations with different histories, political systems and values, we will cooperate with China where we can, disagree where we must and engage in the national interest,” the Australian leader added.
Their relations have improved markedly since Albanese’s center-left Labor Party was elected in 2022 following nine years of conservative government in Australia.
Most of the official and unofficial trade barriers Beijing introduced in 2020 on coal, cotton, wine, barley and wood have been lifted since Albanese was elected.
Beijing had banned minister-to-minister contacts as it froze out the previous Australian government diplomatically.
Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said before the meeting that he would raise the issue of China's ban on Australian rock lobsters and exports from two beef processing plants.
“The mere fact that we have the first visit by a Chinese premier, the second-most powerful person in China, ... since 2017 is an enormous opportunity to continue that dialogue, to continue stabilizing our relationship and address some of the outstanding issues,” Watt said.
Li planned to underscore China’s interest in buying a bigger stake in Australia’s critical minerals sector, which is essential to the global transition to renewable energy sources, by visiting a Chinese-controlled lithium processing plant in Western Australia state Tuesday.
Li visited New Zealand before Australia and is scheduled to stop in Malaysia late Tuesday before returning to China.
Australia shares U.S. concerns over China’s global dominance in critical minerals and control over supply chains in the renewable energy sector.
Citing Australia’s national interests, Treasurer Jim Chalmers recently ordered five Chinese-linked companies to divest their shares in the rare earth mining company Northern Minerals.
Watt said Chinese investment was not banned from the sector, but must meet national security criteria.
Albanese later told Li at a state lunch, "We won't always agree and the points on which we disagree won’t simply disappear if we leave them in silence.”
That appeared to be in response to a statement by Li, released by the Chinese Embassy in Canberra on Sunday, that he recommended “shelving differences” between the two countries in the interests of bolstering relations.
Earlier, Albanese had said he would raise with Li recent clashes between the two countries’ militaries in the South China Sea and Yellow Sea that Australia argues endangered Australian personnel.
Relations tumbled over Australian legislation that banned covert foreign interference in Australian politics, the exclusion of Chinese-owned telecommunications giant Huawei from rolling out the national 5G network due to security concerns, and Australia’s call for an independent investigation into the causes of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Benjamin Herscovitch, a China expert at Australian National University, said he did not expect China to get any firm commitments from Australia during Li’s visit.
Beijing would like to remove Australian opposition to China joining a trade bloc known as the CPTPP, more investment in Australian critical minerals and ambitious new cooperative agreements on science and technology, Herscovitch said.
But Australia had already made a concession to China in rebuilding relations through inaction by not imposing sanctions on Chinese entities that help Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, he said.
“Australia is essentially giving China a free pass on that issue,” Herscovitch said, while Australian allies, including the United States, Britain and the European Union were imposing sanctions.
Hundreds of pro-China demonstrators, human rights activists and democracy advocates have lined the routes of Li’s cavalcades in Adelaide and Canberra.
Pro China and pro Hong Kong supporters wait outside a winery where Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited in Adelaide, Australia, Sunday, June 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Kelly Barnes, Pool)
Police watch as pro China and pro Hong Kong supporters wait outside a winery where Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited in Adelaide, Australia, Sunday, June 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Kelly Barnes, Pool)
A pro-Hong Kong protestor holds a placard ahead of a visit by Chinese Premier Li Qiang to Adelaide Zoo, Australia, Sunday, June 16, 2024. Li is on a relations-mending mission with panda diplomacy, rock lobsters and China's global dominance in the critical minerals sector high on the agenda during his four day visit to Australia. (Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/Pool Photo via AP)
Protesters hold placards ahead of the vist by Chinese Premier Li Qiang to Adelaide Zoo, Australia, Sunday, June 16, 2024. Li is on a relations-mending mission with panda diplomacy, rock lobsters and China's global dominance in the critical minerals sector high on the agenda during his four day visit to Australia. (Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/Pool Photo via AP)
Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shake hands at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Monday, June 17, 2024. Li, Albanese and senior ministers of both administrations met at Parliament House on Monday to discuss thorny issues, including lingering trade barriers, conflict between their militaries in international waters and China's desire to invest in critical minerals. (Mick Tsikas/Pool Photo via AP)
Chinese Premier Li Qiang, right, signs the visitor book as Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese looks on at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Monday, June 17, 2024. Li, Albanese and senior ministers of both administrations met at Parliament House on Monday to discuss thorny issues, including lingering trade barriers, conflict between their militaries in international waters and China's desire to invest in critical minerals. (Mick Tsikas/Pool Photo via AP)
Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shake hands at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Monday, June 17, 2024. Li, Albanese and senior ministers of both administrations met at Parliament House on Monday to discuss thorny issues, including lingering trade barriers, conflict between their militaries in international waters and China's desire to invest in critical minerals. (Mick Tsikas/Pool Photo via AP)
Chinese Premier Li Qiang signs the visitor book at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Monday, June 17, 2024. Li and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and senior ministers of both administrations met at Parliament House on Monday to discuss thorny issues, including lingering trade barriers, conflict between their militaries in international waters and China's desire to invest in critical minerals. (Mick Tsikas/Pool Photo via AP)
Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, left, gestures to Chinese Premier Li Qiang after he signed the visitor's book at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Monday, June 17, 2024. Li and Albanese and senior ministers of both administrations met at Parliament House on Monday to discuss thorny issues, including lingering trade barriers, conflict between their militaries in international waters and China's desire to invest in critical minerals. (Mick Tsikas/Pool Photo via AP)
Chinese Premier Li Qiang inspects a guard of honor outside Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Monday, June 17, 2024. Li, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and senior ministers of both administrations met at Parliament House on Monday to discuss thorny issues, including lingering trade barriers, conflict between their militaries in international waters and China's desire to invest in critical minerals. (Lukas Coch/Pool Photo via AP)
A gun salute as Chinese Premier Li Qiang inspects a guard of honor outside Parliament House in Canberra, Monday, June 17, 2024. Li, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and senior ministers of both administrations met at Parliament House on Monday to discuss thorny issues, including lingering trade barriers, conflict between their militaries in international waters and China's desire to invest in critical minerals. (Lukas Coch/Pool Photo via AP)
Chinese Premier Li Qiang inspects a guard of honor outside Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Monday, June 17, 2024. Li, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and senior ministers of both administrations met at Parliament House on Monday to discuss thorny issues, including lingering trade barriers, conflict between their militaries in international waters and China's desire to invest in critical minerals. (Lukas Coch/Pool Photo via AP)
Chinese Premier Li Qiang, right, speaks across the table to Australian Prime Minster Anthony Albanese during a leaders meeting at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Monday, June 17, 2024. Li, Albanese and senior ministers of both administrations met at Parliament House on Monday to discuss thorny issues, including lingering trade barriers, conflict between their militaries in international waters and China's desire to invest in critical minerals. (Lukas Coch/Pool Photo via AP)
