Red Nose Day (March 13)

Today is Red Nose Day here in the UK. It's basically the biggest fundraising event held by the Comic Relief charity.

Comic Relief was launched live on BBC TV on Christmas Day 1985 in response to the famine in Ethiopia. The idea was to raise money while making people laugh. Red Nose Day was created two years later as a special one-day event to help raise even more money for the charity. It's held just once every 2 years in the spring time. Over £600 million has been raised since Comic Relief started and best of all is that all funds go towards charitable projects.

As the name implies, Red Nose Day involves people wearing red noses (like clowns) - which are available in shops everywhere in exchange for a donation. Every Red Nose Day has a different theme and slightly different nose. This year's theme is "Do Something Funny for Money." All sorts of special fundraising events are held, culminating in a telethon night of nonstop comedy (along with moving documentary films) on BBC TV.

America's version of Comic Relief was actually inspired by the British version and founded a year later in 1986. It is most notable for running periodic fundraising events on HBO, hosted by comedians Robin Williams, Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg, to raise money for the homeless and others in need.

You can read more about Red Nose Day at www.rednoseday.com

PS (Mar 14): Well, a record £57 million was raised yesterday, beating the previous Red Nose Day (2007) by 41%! And they expect another £20 million to come flooding in after last night's telethon. And this is all despite the current economic crunch. Just goes to show that anything is possible.