This year, our team members have run marathons, cycled and walked miles to raise money for charity. We wanted to do more as a team. We didn't just want to bake cakes; we wanted to do something bigger. Christmas is a time to give and for us, a perfect time to give back.
We decided to pack shoeboxes for the 'Operations Christmas Child' charity and donated food supplies to 'The Hope Centre', a local food bank in Derby. For Children in Need we 'did our thing' and raised over £165. Finally, instead of giving Christmas cards to all of our loyal clients, we gave £500 to 'When You Wish Upon a Star.'
Packing shoeboxes
Packing shoeboxes was a huge success. We asked everyone in the business to bring in specific items for a mix of girls and boys aged between 2 and 14. In the end, we had too many presents for the 14 boxes we filled.
Here's us wrapping the boxes and packing them with items such as toys, stationery, toiletries and hats.
The boxes were sent to a local collection space. Now, we’re waiting to see where our 14 boxes end up!
Donating Food supplies
Next, we reached out to everybody in the office to bring in food, especially Christmas treats. We made a trip to our local supermarket and purchased a trolley full of delicious foods from the 'wanted' list. Here are some of the things we picked up:
Doing 'our thing' for Children in Need
For Children in Need 2017 – the theme was 'what’s your thing'. We thought long and hard about ours and agreed upon tea, cake and games. We charged 10-50p per activity throughout the day and between 25 people we raised £165.44.
This Christmas we've raised lots of money for charity and also had lots of fun doing so. Now, we plan to support three charities during the whole of 2018 and we've asked employees to nominate a cause that they want to support. When we have a list to choose from, our Directors will select the final three. We plan to raise as much money in 2018 to help as many people as possible locally and globally.