Charity of the Year

BUSINESS AS A FORCE FOR GOOD

Our support of charities and events within our community used to be a bit haphazard. In 2009 we decided to set up a “Charity of the Year” initiative, to pool together the efforts of our eight offices and focus on making a big difference for one local charity. In order to get our people behind the idea we knew we had to involve them in selecting the charity. Over the years we have fundraised for Sobell House, B.O.B Air Ambulance, Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres, The British Heart Foundation and, most recently, Oxford Children’s Hospital.

Written by: Victoria Lyall

“Our budding bakers across our eight offices do like to hold bake sales, whether they sell to the public or to their sweettoothed colleagues!

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As 2019 was our 10th anniversary of having a centralised charity partner, our aim was to raise £10,000 for the Children’s Hospital, based at the John Radcliffe. The charity funds the best medical equipment, research, training and facilities for both patients and staff. The hospital wards are very bright and happy spaces, built around the needs of children and their families, with indoor and outdoor play areas, sensory rooms and even a school on-site.

Activities

We held several events throughout the year, and our people were superb in their enthusiasm, volunteering for the various events:

• OX5 RUN: This event takes place around the beautiful grounds of Blenheim Palace and the glorious spring weather made the event really special. We had 37 people - and six dogs -

walking or running the course. We were told this was the biggest corporate team the event has ever had and TeamFK raised £3,590.

• Bake sales: Our budding bakers across our eight offices do like to hold bake sales, whether they sell to the public or to their sweet-toothed colleagues! We held bake sales throughout our offices in March, May and December and raised a total of £992.10.

• Bucket collections: We manned bucket collections at supermarket foyers in May and November, raising a total of £300.64. We also heard some heart-warming stories from people who have had direct experience with the Children’s Hospital.

• Quizzes: We had held a quiz night in 2018 and found it was a firm favourite. In May 2019 we had 13 teams taking part and we had secured a fantastic raffle, with prizes generously donated from our friends in Summertown, including Tesco,

Majestic Wine, Cannelle Medispa and many other retailers. Later in the year Rachel Thraves, Senior Property Manager in North Oxford, designed a quiz, which we completed individually and the winners were announced at the company Christmas party. Together, the quizzes raised £1,187.10.

• Skydive: The more fearless team members signed up for the Great Horton Skydive and got support and donations from all their colleagues and friends and family. After a couple of false starts (the jump was postponed twice due to poor weather!) the team successfully completed their tandem skydives, raising an impressive £1,246.46.

• Oxford Half: In October nine of our people ran the Oxford Half Marathon. Elsewhere along the course, 15 of our team members had volunteered at an aid station. They stood in the pouring rain in Marston from 7.30am to midday, handing out water and shouting words

of encouragement as the runners went by. We were proud and amazed at both groups’ stamina and fundraising prowess, with £1,295 raised for the Oxford Children’s Hospital. In spite of the persistent and sometimes very heavy rain, our runners completed the challenge with a smile on their faces, and only words of positivity were heard from our team of volunteers at the end!

• Online Auction: By autumn we were approaching our target but felt we needed a final push. So our marketing team put together an auction which was hosted on our website. Local businesses and some of our local contacts kindly donate prizes to the auction, which was held in late November. We were able to gather some fabulous donations including spa days, a meal for 2 at a Michelin starred restaurant, room redecoration, signed books, a Christmas tree, a cookery course and even some signed F1 merchandise. The auction raised an amazing £2,014

“It has really been wonderful to see how enthusiastic everyone has been about fundraising for the Children’s Hospital

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Community fundraising

Our fundraising will help to support projects like the cutting-edge bedside monitors which can travel with the child throughout the hospital, whether to or from intensive care, into theatre or between wards, meaning young patients would no longer need to be disconnected and reconnected to multiple machines as they do now.

Community fundraising also helped to fund the new Ronald McDonald Parents Accommodation, which will benefit parents of patients being looked after by the Oxford Children’s Hospital, Children’s Critical Care and Newborn Intensive Care at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

“Paul Rushworth, Managing Director of Finders Keepers, said: “It has really been wonderful to see how enthusiastic everyone has been about fundraising for the Children’s Hospital. It was great to have such a diverse range of activities and events, which involved so many different team members. This enabled us to surpass our target and raise a total of £10,625.30 during 2019.”

victoria.Lyall@finderskeepers.co.uk 01865 311 011 www.finders.co.uk   