Every year Alexandra Rose Day organises street collections, house-to house and supermarket collections in which partner charities participate. They provide the volunteers but Alexandra Rose Day does the organisational work, provides the equipment, helps with publicity and covers the regulatory requirements.

Each year the Flag Day is launched by the Prime Minister buying a rose on the steps of 10 Downing Street. London collections will take place on 18 June 2008; national collections will take place on 21 June 2008.

Through the Day's events and the generosity of our supporters including trusts and corporates, Alexandra Rose Day have been able to set up a Special Appeal Fund which operates a grant programme. Any charity which takes part in one of their collections can write in and apply for a grant.

Alexandra Rose Day was founded in 1912 when Queen Alexandra started the first national Flag Day to mark the fiftieth anniversary of her arrival in the UK from Denmark. Thousands of volunteers sold roses in London for the benefit of hospitals and other charitable institutions. The first Rose Day raised £32,000 (over £2 million in today's money).

Today the organisation continues the Alexandra Rose Day tradition by helping people-caring charities to help themselves. They do this by providing simple, risk free methods of raising funds from the general public.

The charities it works with support disabled people, children, the young and the elderly – in fact any voluntary organisation that aims to help people in need or to improve their quality of life. Most of them are small community-based organisations that rely on volunteer workers and have limited funds. These are the groups that miss out on government funding because they operate at a personal level helping individuals when required but not fitting in to the contract culture.

www.alexandraroseday.org.uk [1]