Volunteering at Chelsea
15 October 2008
A year on and staff have donated 600 hours!
Staff at Chelsea Building Society in Cheltenham are celebrating reaching a landmark in their volunteering programme.
A year ago, Chelsea had its first venture in to volunteering and now a year on has reached a staggering total of over 600 hours. The year has seen staff volunteering at a host of projects including a weekly soup kitchen, bucket collecting, digging holes for trees and listening to children read.
Chelsea’s venture in to volunteering started with a joint partnership with Zurich Financial Services on 8 November 2007, at Lynworth School, Cheltenham to hear children read at lunch time once a week. Since this partnership started Chelsea has doubled the amount of volunteers it sends to the school each week and now has a team of 20 volunteers taking part.
The reading showed how keen staff were to volunteer and employees now help at a weekly soup kitchen atCornerstone Community Centre in Whaddon and many departments are taking part in ad-hoc projects. Now having donated the equivalent of one member of staff for over four months to the community Chelsea is keen to see its volunteering programme grow even further.
Speaking about the partnership Sally Davies, Community Support Consultant for Chelsea said “We are so proud of how much time our staff have given up for volunteering so far. This time last year we could never have dreamt our staff could have achieved so much in such a short space of time. We are looking forward to seeing where we are in another year’s time.”
Notes
- Chelsea is the UK's 5th largest building society with assets over £14 bn
- Chelsea Building Society is one of the largest employers in Gloucestershire and the Southwest
- Chelsea’s local branch is at 137 High Street, Cheltenham
- Details of Chelsea’s corporate responsibility programme can be found at www.chelseacares.co.uk
