Lakeside customers buying IKEA soft toys have raised over €35,500 for global education.

The money raised is part of the IKEA Soft Toys for Education Campaign.

For every soft toy purchased between October 27 2014 and 3 January 2015, the IKEA Foundation donated €1 to educational projects run by Save the Children and UNICEF.

The projects train teachers, help give children a safe space to learn, provide educational materials, and increase school attendance in some of the world’s poorest communities.

As well as supporting UNICEF and Save the Children projects, local charitable causes were supported.

This was done as part of ‘give twice’ activities where customers can choose to buy an additional soft toy which can be dropped into the ‘give twice’ boxes in each IKEA store and then be donated to local charities.

Richard Rands, IKEA Lakeside Store Manager said: “We are so grateful to our customers for their continued support of the Soft Toys for Education Campaign, and we’re delighted with the amount of money we’ve managed to raise as well as the additional toys we’ve been able to give to our local Save the Children store."

“At IKEA, we turn to our irresistible soft toys for help, and once again they’ve helped us raise invaluable funds.”

IKEA Lakeside has raised over €550,000 nationwide for the campaign this year, to add to a total of over €76 million raised globally since it began in 2003, which has reached more than 11 million children through 99 projects in 46 different countries.