BLOG: Why Charity Matters to NextGear Capital
Katie Davis shares how we've been working to reach our fundraising target
At NextGear Capital we’re huge believers in supporting our local community! With this in mind the first half of 2015 has been extremely busy with lots of charitable events. Every department has a volunteer on our charity committee as it’s a shared company goal to be upholding our corporate social responsibility. In January our journey began when all NextGear Capital employees were asked to nominate a charity and the BabyGrow Appeal at the Countess of Chester Hospital was chosen due to lots of support and its locality.
BabyGrow Appeal
The BabyGrow Appeal is aiming to raise £3 million for a new neonatal unit more than double the size of the current one to enable patients and their family to have adequate space and privacy during difficult times. The new facility will include a counselling room and play room for siblings along with larger nurseries and areas for families to have some quiet time.
Money, money money
We set ourselves a target of raising £10,000 by the end of the year to support this excellent charity. Our combination of dress down days, fancy dress days, bake sales, competitive bake offs, half marathons, zip wires and charity auctions meant that we hit our £10,000 target by the mid-year milestone! We’re delighted!! Supporting charities is motivational for the team and means we can have fun whilst doing some good!
Going…going…gone
Our charity auction, which we held at Peckforton Castle alongside celebrating our first birthday, was a fantastic event with many partners and suppliers generously donating items such as a home entertainment system, signed book, artistic prints and luxurious meals. In addition we had a mystery box as well as annual leave being donated by the company! The excitement of bidding saw many people exceed their original limit as everyone knew what a good cause it was for.
THANK YOU TO OUR VARIOUS PARTNERS FOR YOUR GENEROSITY.
Flying the Union Jack
At the end of June we joined up with our American colleagues and participated in a Can-Struction event to drive away hunger! Members of the team donated cans and before these were handed over to West Cheshire Food Bank the 118kg of cans were used to construct a model Big Ben! Our team effort has helped to feed 10 families for a week!
What’s next?
We are delighted with what we have achieved and have revised our annual target to £15,000, We are still planning lots of fun activities for the team, including our upcoming fayre and winter hot pots but our main goal is #NextGear8000. As a team we have committed to travelling 8000 miles the equivalent of travelling from our head office in Chester to our US counterparts head office in Carmel Indiana…and back! We have already cycled, swam and ran to contribute and are nearly at our half way point! We are asking friends and family to sponsor us in our joint goal whilst being healthy at the same time. To help we even have an exercise bike in our break out area in the office!
Thank You
Thanks to everyone who has supported our efforts so far by sponsoring us or donating gifts. We are proud to be helping the community and look forward to more excitement in the second half of the year!
Thanks for reading!
Katie Davis