Help hospice patients by wearing something festive

Companies are being urged to allow staff to wear festive clothing for a day in the run-up to Christmas to raise funds for hospice patient

South Bucks Hospice is organising the festive celebration on Friday December 6th across the county. The suggested donation for every adult taking part is £2.

Clubs, schools, community groups and councils will also be asked to join in, along with any other organisations or residents who want to enter the festive fundraising spirit. The suggested donation for schoolchildren is £1.

Ben O’Keefe, Community Fundraiser for South Bucks Hospice, explained: "Christmas is a really difficult period for some of our patients and their families, so it would be great if the community can band together in this way to help raise some money for the services they so rely on."

If December 6th doesn’t work for you, the hospice says you are welcome to vary the date.

The charity, based at Butterfly House in High Wycombe, helps people with progressive, life-threatening or terminal illnesses

South Bucks Hospice is also appealing for businesses to support a nurse for a day in December. Anyone who wants to do so, or alternatively take part in the festive clothing campaign, can contact Ben on 01494 552761 or [email protected].

Are you looking to expand your CSR activities in 2020?

A message from Fran Borg-Wheeler, CEO, Youth Concern

Wanting to support a cause which will both engage your staff and make a tangible difference to vulnerable young people in your community?

We may have the perfect opportunity for your business.

Youth Concern is a trusted, well-respected charity which has been working at the heart of the community for the past 40 years, supporting vulnerable young people when they need us most.

Excitingly, in 2020, we are going to launch our ambitious new youth homelessness supported accommodation project called The Next Step, which will provide up to 20 young people facing a homeless crisis with the stability and support to rebuild their lives. This is only possible thanks to the amazing community response we have had from our £1m fundraising campaign!

And YOU can be part of that solution!

You can help somebody like Sharna, who was homeless, but with Youth Concern’s support, managed to build her confidence, find stable accommodation and get a job as a beauty therapist.

To find out more about our corporate supporters packages, please check out this link.

If you would like to have a conversation to learn more about this project, I would be delighted to hear from you at [email protected].

PFC Ethiopia – helping poverty-stricken families

By Sarah Parfitt

Every now and again, we experience something so profound that it changes the direction of our lives.

For me that happened in March 2015 when I travelled to the dusty plains of eastern Ethiopia with an amazing charity called Partners For Change Ethiopia. I visited the community of Gende Tesfa, which faces numerous challenges including dire poverty, water and sanitation issues and families living with the physical and emotional scars of leprosy.

I met children at Gende Tesfa School who started their day on an empty stomach because their parents couldn’t afford to feed them or they had been orphaned. Some children were given sugared water before school to give them enough energy to get through the school day.

I asked if I could meet some of the parents because I wanted to have a better understanding of what life was like for them. Amongst others I met an extraordinary woman called Fatuma, who was caring for her step-grandchildren in the absence of their parents. Fatuma had been treated for leprosy, and despite debilitating injuries was gathering firewood for 12 hours a day for the equivalent of £1 in Birr. It was a daily fight for survival but Fatuma had an infectious, indomitable spirit.

After that visit to Ethiopia in 2015, I returned to Cookham. My eldest son Joshua was so moved by what I told him that he suggested organising a fundraising event for the children of Gende Tesfa School.

I am delighted to say that since then, Holy Trinity School and other friends in Cookham and Maidenhead have organised over 20 other fundraisers and raised more than £30,000 for the community of Gende Tesfa. Together we have built a sports ground, and funded both the Breakfast Club and business training for 100 mums and dads so that the project can be more sustainable.

If you organised a fundraiser, made a donation or sponsored business training for one of the women in Gende Tesfa, thank you so much for believing in this project!

There is still a lot more that needs to be done, so do support Partners For Change Ethiopia if you can via their fundraising page.

We are also looking for more PFC Ethiopia Ambassadors and partners in the UK, so please get in touch if you are interested in finding out more: [email protected].

Find out more information on the PFC Ethiopia website.

Re-Cycle Bikes to Africa

Re-Cycle Bikes to Africa, a small charity based in Essex, receives used bikes and ships them to rural communities in Africa.

Across the UK, thousands of bikes are thrown away or lie unused in sheds, whilst many people in Africa are forced to walk for hours carrying heavy loads to get to market, school and work and to fetch water and crops.

Enriching the lives of those less fortunate, by giving them the independence of a bike, really does change lives. Our bikes provide people with opportunities to gain new skills and a sustainable income which enables them to invest in their own projects. Bikes which may not be suitable to send to Africa are stripped down for spare parts or are repaired and sold to the community here in the UK.

The charity has received 14,500 bikes at its warehouse this year, and since we started in 1998, we have sent over 111,000 bikes. Imagine where those bikes might have ended up if we hadn’t received them?

Re-Cycle touches the lives of people in the UK, as well as overseas, by providing life skills and social support to a diverse community through our volunteering programme. As we start to consider Christmas and the buying of gifts for each other, we are also thinking of those less fortunate. Re-Cycle’s 2019 Christmas campaign is around “Giving the Gift of Independence” - and our bikes do just that.

Donating bikes helps change lives, reduces the impact on landfill and makes for a cleaner environment.

For information, see this promotional flyer, visit the Re-Cycle website or call 01206 617865.

Have you #GotTheBottle to help reduce plastic waste?

Visit Buckinghamshire & The Chilterns are backing a national campaign to reduce the number of single use plastic bottles that are disposed of every day in the UK, called Refill.

Launched in Aylesbury by the Aylesbury Town Centre Partnership, the campaign is encouraging town centre visitors to use their own refillable bottles and asking local businesses to join the Refill campaign and provide free tap water refills from a drinkable water supply in their premises.

Visit Buckinghamshire & The Chilterns is fully supporting this initiative in Aylesbury and is encouraging other businesses, town centres and district councils across Buckinghamshire to also adopt this scheme.

Read further information on the Refill scheme here.

Sponsor the Paralympic Heritage Flame Lighting Ceremony

The Paralympic Heritage Flame Lighting Ceremony is a major part of the Paralympic Games, with the 2020 Games taking place in Tokyo from 25th August to 6th September.

Organisers of the Flame Lighting Ceremony, which include WheelPower and Aylesbury Vale District Council, are looking for businesses to sponsor the event to help create the best possible ceremony that reaches out to local people, highlights the Paralympic values, and pays tribute to the birthplace of the Paralympic movement, Stoke Mandeville, which will play host to the ceremony.

Please read the attached sponsorship brochure to see the different levels of sponsorship available and what promotional benefits businesses can receive.

For more information, email [email protected] or call 01296 585156.