Our staff are encouraged to support local communities through fundraising activities and donations to local charities.
Every year our staff are given the opportunity to vote on the charity that they would like to support. The charities that we have supported and funded so far have enabled us to not only help the community through participation in voluntary action, but have also helped to bring staff together from a social perspective.
To date we have raised money for the following charities:
- Warwickshire Wildlife Trust – Sensory Garden
- The Elisabeth Svendsen Trust for Children and Donkeys
- Action 21’s Sustainability Garden in Leamington Spa
- Kamla Foundation - sustainable water management solutions in Tamil Nadu, India
- Warwickshire Wildlife Trust – Romano British Campsite Project
And we are currently raising funds for Myton Hospice's 'Rainbow Ripples' initiative, which is a specialist child and teenage bereavement counselling service that helps children who are affected by the serious illness or death of a close family member.
Warwickshire Wildlife Trust: Sensory Garden
During autumn 2011, our volunteering exercise involved spending a day at the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust helping them to clear the ground for a new Sensory Garden.
The existing garden wasn’t that easy to walk around which meant that they required a re-design to take into account people with mobility difficulties and wheelchair users. Structures in the new garden (which opened in spring 2012) have tactile features, including a ‘braille rail’, which explains what plants and animals can be found nearby. Bees are able to fly around the garden from a hole in the wall, leading to a see-through beehive in the classroom next door.
Valpak Limited donated a sum of £3,000 towards the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust’s Sensory Garden and our Charity Committee raised £3,000 for The Elisabeth Svendsen Trust for Children and Donkeys, through fund-raising activities and staff participation.
Movember 2011
During November 2011, 21 staff members decided to grow moustaches in support of the international charity Movember, to raise funds for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men.
In addition to encouraging donations via the website, the Valpak team, the Tachemanian Devils, ran a competition whereby Valpak staff had to vote on the Best Mo, the Worst Mo and the Biggest Mo and pay for their votes. The Tachemanian Devils managed to raise £2,575.