ACTS of charity-sanctioned fun will be popping up all over the region today as kind-spirited Cumbrians do their bit for Children in Need, reports Jennie Dennett.

Down at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Kendal, staff will be tucking into cold barbecue beans in a ten-hour eatathon as part of the BBC’s annual festival of fund-raising.

“Everybody has sat in a bath of baked beans so I said ‘how about we eat them for ten hours’,” said Pauline Irving of The Woolpack Yard fast-food outlet. “The staff all said OK. They are up for a good laugh, especially when it’s for charity.” Game-for-a-laugh staff will take turns at a table outside KFC publicly spooning down cold beans while their co-workers rattle the collecting tins at spectators.

Meanwhile, at Kendal’s Dean Gibson Catholic Primary School, the children have decided to convert their favourite dance moves into charity pounds.

Ten-year-olds Siobhan Callaghan and Katherine Jamieson came up with a plan to charge their fellow pupils to take part in a mass Macarena and a limbo followed by a penalty shoot-out for the less-disco orientated. The girls organised the charity event with friends Bethany Hartley, Elliot Jacobs, Danny Bell and Christopher Bell and hope to persuade the rest of the school to join in. “It’s going to be fun,” said Siobhan.

Over at Kendal’s Asda, Children in Need shenanigans began last Saturday as staff launched the store’s fund-raising by dressing their trainee co-ordinator Gill Haynes in a Pudsey Bear outfit and dispatching her to The Helm above Oxenholme.

If staff didn’t raise enough money to ‘rescue’ Mrs Haynes from her predicament, she was to be left to wander the fells in her bear costume.

Happily for her, and this being Asda, staff put their hands into back pockets and between them donated around £250 – enough to persuade organisers to call in the Kendal Mountain Rescue Team to fetch Pudsey back to safety.

An eight-man crew hastily nipped up the Helm and stretchered her down without so much as a sprained paw, although the experience proved to be a bit of an emotional strain.

“I did get quite a few funny looks,” said a blushing Pudsey, aka Mrs Haynes.

There will be more charity stunts this coming week as staff sit in a bath of custard while customers give for the cause via in-store collecting tins or by investing in a pair of Pudsey ears for £1.75, with all proceeds going to charity.

Meanwhile, as Children in Need coverage airs on the BBC 1 tonight, those donating over the phone will be speaking to staff of Windermere-based Lakeland Limited.

The kitchenware retailer normally handles phone orders for its cookware and gadgets, but will be acting as the call centre for Cumbria for the first time this year.