News Release
Family Charity gets a Mears makeover
A 27th London Home-Start scheme is a step further to completion thanks to help from national construction firm Mears and a local primary school.
Home-Start is the UK's leading family support charity. It has almost 16,000 trained volunteers visiting families in their own homes, offering both practical and emotional support to parents who are struggling to cope with bringing up a family whatever the reason. 340 other Home-Start schemes already work across the UK.
Home-Start Wandsworth is at development stage. Not only does it need to secure vital funding and volunteers, but also a base to work from.
West Hill Primary School in Southfields, London, kindly donated one of its own rooms to Home-Start Wandsworth, the only problem was that the room was in urgent need of repair.
Mears, which is the leading Social Housing repairs and maintenance provider in the UK, seemed the ideal choice for Home-Start to approach as they believe that local companies should contribute to supporting local communities. Mears does this by volunteering the skills of its workforce to help provide long-term sustaining benefits to local people.
Thanks to an already established relationship between Mears and Home-Start, (Mears Head of Human Resources is also a trustee for Home-Start Bury), Mears were happy to get in involved.
Dawn Lambert, Head of HR at Mears said: "I have been involved with Home-Start for two years now and really believe that it's a wonderful charity. Home-Start not only helps the families it works with but benefits the community at large. When Home-Start came to Mears for help it was a perfect match as Mears is dedicated to supporting local communities. The refurbishment undertaken by Mears will help many people within the community for a very long time."
Emma Richards, New Schemes Consultant for London says: "This whole refurbishment project has been fantastic, both in terms of the professionalism of Mears Ltd, the partnership with West Hill Primary and the key aim of being closer to launching a live Home-Start service. That fact that the community is helping to develop the service from within by using volunteers to renovate a room free of charge is commitment to making a difference."
A £10,000 Big Lottery Awards for All Grant has just been secured to furnish the new office space with computers and office equipment. Once further funding has been secured for staff salaries, Home-Start Wandsworth will be able to work from its new premises.
Anyone interested in supporting Home-Start Wandsworth's development should contact Emma Richards, Tel: 0207 831 7023, Email: erichards@home-start.org.uk
Staff from Mears give a makeover to Home-Start Wandsworth's new
premises
at West Hill Primary School
ENDS
Contact details:
Jo McLeish, Press and PR Officer, Home-Start UK
Tel: 0870 220 6713
Email: jmcleish@home-start.org.uk
Home-Start is the UK's leading family support charity. We recruit and train volunteers to support parents with at least one child under the age of five. Our home visiting work is unique in the UK. The charity was set up in 1973 and now supports nearly 35,000 families and over 71,000 children each year. Almost 16,000 volunteers visit families in their own homes - parents supporting other parents in a variety of situations including isolation, bereavement, multiple births, illness or disability.
To volunteer, donate or find out more about Home-Start phone free on 08000 68 63 68 or log on to http://www.home-start.org.uk
Mears is the leading Social Housing repairs and maintenance provider in the UK, providing rapid response and planned maintenance services to Local Authorities and Registered Social Landlords. We deliver in excess of 3,000 repairs daily to a portfolio of over 500,000 houses nation-wide. Our customer service philosophy is simply to make tenants smile.
Mears takes an active role in contributing sustainable improvement and support to the communities in which it works, through practical initiatives such as youth projects, local apprenticeship training, refurbishments and local mentoring schemes. For further information please visit www.mearsgroup.co.uk
Contact details:
Kirsty MacLeod, Group PR Manager
Tel: 07894 783 459
Email: kirsty.macleod@mearsgroup.co.uk
