Helping hand for Home-Start Herts

Solicitors leave their desks to spend days supporting county charity with a spot of decorating

Volunteers from a solicitors’ practice picked up paintbrushes to give a charity premises a fresh look.

The team at Taylor Walton Solicitors gave a helping hand to Home-Start Hertfordshire and over three days, they deep cleaned, painted and helped reorganise the Stevenage office.

Twenty-five people from across the firm’s three offices in St Albans, Harpenden and Luton each spent half a day out of the office to help paint, tidy and reorganise the charity’s office.

Home-Start is Taylor Walton’s chosen charity for the 24/25 financial year and the firm offers all staff the opportunity to volunteer for a half day per annum.

Emily Waddell, Head of Marketing at Taylor Walton, said: “It was a pleasure to coordinate this project – well done and thank you to everyone who was involved. It was a big project to take on over three days, with several rooms needing a makeover, including the kitchen, meeting room, office spaces, hallway, storage area and loos.

“This has already made a big difference to the charity and will allow them to focus on their core work of helping families across Hertfordshire.”

The teams set to work in each area which were cleaned and tidied first before being painted. All cupboards were reorganised to use their storage space more effectively.

Before After

New furniture was provided by JPA Workspaces and paint by Brewers Decorators in St Albans. The team also arranged for wall decorations to be printed of the charity’s values by MacPro Design and Print.

Colourful landscape pictures provided by Taylor Walton staff were also printed for frames to go on to some of the walls. The project recycled and reused as much as possible to be more sustainable. The result is a fresh and inviting office space.

Not all the team at Taylor Walton were able to volunteer over the three days, so in addition three bake sales were held which helped raise money to buy extras such as the picture frames and plants with the remainder donated to the charity.

Home-Start Hertfordshire was set up in 1983 and believes every child deserves a happy and secure childhood and that every parent should have the support they need to give their children the best start in life. It achieves this by providing families struggling with post-natal depression, isolation, physical health problems, bereavement and many other issues the support of a volunteer family mentor who will spend around two hours a week in a family’s home.

Through practical and emotional support, they make sure parents have the skills, confidence and strength they need to nurture their children.

Suzy Moody, Home-Start Hertfordshire’s CEO, said: We were delighted to be Taylor Walton’s chosen charity for the year. Right from the start, they were raring to go, with a schedule of fundraising activities and events already planned.

“When we mentioned the refurb, Emily jumped at the idea and gathered a team together to take on the challenge. The outcome far exceeded our expectations and staff have loved the new fresh look, and the personal touches showed how much they cared.”