Many Burda employees are involved in voluntary or social work, taking on responsibility and helping other people in their spare time. We would like to present this heartfelt commitment here to inspire other employees.
Many Burda employees are involved in voluntary or social work, taking on responsibility and helping others in their spare time. Today, we would like to present Daisy Ford's heartfelt commitment here to inspire other employees.
This has always been an area I am passionate about and keen to do more in. Everyone can make a small difference by volunteering their time or contributing to charity work, but being part of a well-established company brings the potential to do something on a larger scale - to make a bigger difference. So, when the opportunity arose, I had to get involved! This is a new initiative we’re embarking on so it is early days, but it’s great to meet inspiring individuals, learn more about the different projects going on in our local community and see what we can do to help. Many people are struggling at the moment and at a time when funding & services are already over-stretched, I think it’s just really important we’re doing more to make a positive contribution to our local communities. It also lets them know more about who we are and what we do.
The biggest initiative so far is with a local primary school. This has included sponsoring their Breakfast Club for the autumn school term to ensure that the children are set up for a day of learning with a good meal. We have provided equipment for their little school garden which they use to educate the children and grow vegetables (which are used in their school meals!). Our colleagues at Immediate Media on the BBC Gardeners World team helped me source some of the equipment to get the best prices. Also, with the help of Immediate Media, we have arranged back-to-school stationery packs for the year 6 pupils ahead of their SAT year.
Another initiative we started in the office last year and will continue to do every year is ‘Sack off Secret Santa’ where instead of swapping silly gifts amongst each other, we put that money to much better use and make a donation to a local charity. Last year it was to the Friary which works to end homelessness and support vulnerable adults. We’ve also supported this charity by arranging clothes donations to their pop-up shop.
What’s not to like! Maybe the best thing is the relationships that are formed. Not only does helping others contribute to supporting local projects and helping essential services continue, but it’s also amazing to learn from and connect with new people. There’s such a positive impact on both sides of the party and hopefully, this has a knock-on effect encouraging people to do more acts of kindness in other areas of their lives too. It’s a real mood booster!
The biggest thing we’ve done so far is supporting the school, which I’m really proud of. Just seeing how grateful they are and what a difference it will make to the children is amazing. I received a picture of the children with big smiles on their faces clutching the stationary packs which was a touching moment. Times are so tough for so many families, so even just the smallest of gestures go a really long way.
It’s a little early to say and we are still finding our feet with the relationship with the school. I guess the overall goal is to connect with local charities and organisations to see what we can do to help and, importantly, make a difference in our local community. This has gone well so far, for example, we have achieved everything we initially set out to do for the school. My aim now is to try and get more of our team involved through a volunteering scheme where we can hopefully take part in more practical tasks.
It’s really nice to be able to take a step out of the usual day-to-day tasks and take this on, so I just manage my workload to make the time available. I am also part of an amazing team who are all really on board with the Outreach initiatives too, so we make it work!
At the moment, we are focusing on projects local to where we work in Nottingham. In practice, it may be difficult for people in other locations to get involved. That said, the Magic Breakfast programme which is linked to the Breakfast Club we sponsored is a UK-wide initiative so maybe it will encourage people to think about supporting a school local to them where there is a need. I know many people want to do more but often don’t know where to start, so I really hope an established outreach programme within Nutracheck will give more members of the team an opportunity to get involved. One big way people can support me is by sharing ideas! If anyone comes across a local organisation or charity, they think it would be great to work with, please do drop me a message.
There’s a team of us doing a 10k run in Nottingham with the proceeds going to Shelter. Then I am just looking to reach out to more local charities in the new year to see what support they might benefit from and how we could help. The challenge is to avoid spreading ourselves too thinly! There are lots of ideas bubbling in my mind, so we’ll just have to watch this space.
