News Release
National retailer in volunteering link up
Boots has developed a major new partnership with a charity to encourage and support its people to volunteer. Known as The Healthy Communities Programme, Boots has been working in partnership with Home-Start, the UK's leading family support charity, to offer a range of volunteering opportunities.
Home-Start offers emotional and practical support to families who are struggling to cope. With over 340 local schemes throughout the UK, Home-Start's 15,000 volunteers are usually parents themselves, uniquely visit families in their own homes to help to strengthen families and in turn build stronger communities.
The Healthy Communities Programme has already seen staff sign up to a different range of volunteering opportunities with the charity from Ground Force style makeovers to hosting events and supporting Home-Start schemes as mentors.
Says Nicki Stockdale of Boots' Community Investment Team: "We have worked with Boots HR team to map all of the Healthy Communities volunteering opportunities against our business competencies. For example, if a person has been working in a store for a while and is ready to move on to become a team leader or a store manager, they might need a practical way of developing their leadership skills-a Home-Start team challenge would give them exactly this experience while benefiting the local community at the same time."
At Home-Start Ashfield a large team of senior managers who run Boots' Eastern region stores gave the scheme a make over. They re-decorated the kitchen, put up new blinds and lights and laid a new floor. Local Home-Start schemes have little money to spend on their own premises so Boots' staff helping them out was an enormous boost to the scheme.
At Home-Start Malvern Hills, another team from Boots spent the day creating a large 'under the sea' mural on all four walls of the family room. In Boots' regional office in Bristol more than 30 volunteers, trustees and staff from Home-Start Bristol and Home-Start North Somerset attended a well- deserved pampering session, where eight Boot's staff spent the day giving manicures, pedicures and facials.
Home-Start's co-managers of the pilot scheme are excited by the project so far. Says one of the managers, Ruth Consterdine: "We have been impressed by the commitment and energy shown by Boots and by Home-Start's local scheme staff to help make these events a success.
Says Nicki Stockdale: "Supporting the community of which we're a part has long been part of working for Boots. We wanted to give our people a simple route to get involved. As well as this, volunteering is a great way to develop the skills of our people in a completely different setting."
ENDS
Notes to Editor: For high quality photos of the various volunteering events, please contact below.
Contact details:
Jo McLeish, Press and PR Officer, Home-Start UK
Tel: 0870 220 6713
Email: jmcleish@home-start.org.uk
Home-Start recruits and trains volunteers to support parents with children under five years old. We are the leading family support charity in the UK. Our service is open to everyone and our home visiting work is unique in the UK. The charity was set up in 1973 and now supports more than 33,000 families and nearly 70,000 children each year. More than 15,000 volunteers visit families in their own homes - parents supporting other parents in a variety of situations including isolation, bereavement, multiple births, illness or disability. Home-Start also runs Teenage Parent Groups to help and support young parents.
To volunteer, donate or find out more about Home-Start phone free on 0800 068 63 68 or log on to http://www.home-start.org.uk
