GOOD THINGS - OUR COMMUNITIES AND SOCIAL VALUE STRATEGY
Giving back is in our DNA
As a business firmly rooted in family values, involvement and support for a variety of charities and community organisations is in our DNA, and last year we donated nearly £45,000!
With a vision to positively impact our local communities we are proud of the long-standing relationships we have developed. More than simply donations and fundraising, we are actively involved and keen to give back and help our local community.
In celebration of our 75th anniversary we launched our first Good Things report highlighting recent environmental, charity, community and staff projects and activities.
We are proud to be a part of the following charity, community and education initiatives:
Charity Support • Local Sport • Grassroots Sport • Education
Charity Support
Ride High is a registered charity based in Milton Keynes which aims to help disadvantaged children and those having difficulties in their daily lives, by giving them the opportunity to learn to ride and look after horses and ponies.
We really value the wonderful relationship we have built with Ride High over the last five years, and we work hard to support this wonderful charity in the following ways:
Charity waste collections – We take responsibility for all their waste, including manure! Saving time and money and improving their sustainability credentials, this equates to an annual donation of £30,000, the equivalent of supporting 120 children’s horse sessions on a 12 week programme!
Fundraising –We sponsor, take part and help organise fundraising events such as helping plan the routes for their annual cycle challenge.
Tours and talks – From visiting members and giving talks, to tours of our recycling facility we help educate the children on recycling.
Hobby the Horse – We have recently provided funding towards their Hobby the Horse schools educational programme which is matched to Key Stage 1 Curriculum. Participating schools receive a selection of resources to teach children the importance of recycling and giving back to their local community.
“Cawleys have been an amazing support for us, not just financially but also in terms of help and guidance, they are pivotal to the organisation of fundraising events and get involved directly with our members. They are such a lovely family business; we feel they genuinely care and want to help”
Keech Hospice Care supports adults and children from Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Milton Keynes, who have life-limiting and terminal illnesses by providing free, specialist care to help patients live pain and symptom free, and enable them to make the most of the time they have.
Providing services from their Luton based hospice, they also work in hospitals, schools, care homes or family homes – wherever the support is needed the most.
Working together since 2010, recent highlights include:
Charity waste collections – at events and the hospice.
Fundraising – Sponsorship and activity participation.
Business Club – We are founder Platinum Partners of their Business Club which provides a sustainable income, helping them plan ahead for their patients and services.
Volunteering opportunities.
Christmas tree recycling – As part of their Christmas tree recycling scheme we help collect Christmas trees from Luton and Central Bedfordshire residents in return for a donation to the hospice.
The Big Trunk Trail - We were delighted to sponsor one of the 30 unique elephant sculptures that made up the public art trail in Luton in aid of Keech Hospice. Raising an incredible £10,000 at the auction at the end of the event, we were overjoyed our elephant raised so much money!
“Cawleys crucial support and involvement has helped us to have a significant impact on the community we support and the services we provide for children and adults. More than financial support their involvement has helped raise awareness of our work within areas we might not have before.”
CHUMS is a mental health and emotional wellbeing service for children, young people and their families.
They provide therapeutic support for bereavement and trauma and are a charity particularly close to our hearts as they provided amazing support for a colleague’s children following his tragic death in 2007.
Our employees buy Christmas presents for the children CHUMS are supporting. Distributed at a special Christmas remembrance service for their loved ones, the children remember those they have lost by sharing poems and readings with each other.
A non-profit organisation, Luton Food Bank is working to eradicate food poverty in the town through the provision of free, nutritionally balanced, and culturally appropriate food to those in need.
Saving them time and money we are supporting them by providing free weekly recycling collections, helping them to stay true to their anti-waste and sustainability ethos.
We have supported the MK Food Reach initiative since it was established to help tackle rising food poverty resulting from the cost of living crisis.
With an increase in families who are affected and fewer food donations from the general public, local food banks are struggling to keep up with demand.
MK Food Reach provides a platform for businesses to donate money to deliver food pallets to Milton Keynes charities. Making a generous donation and providing an artic lorry and driver, we helped to deliver 26 pallets of food and supplies, to MK Food Bank and Baby Basics.
We are proud to support CIL and sponsor a category at the annual Community Awards.
CIL was created to support the most vulnerable in the community and organise a number of fundraising initiatives throughout the year such as ‘Keeping Luton Warm’.
Focused on preventing homelessness, Herts Young Homeless is our chosen charity for the south of our region, helping 16-24 year olds through education, family mediation and providing support in their first homes or as carers for adults.
Last year our £2,000 pledge enabled the charity to take part in the Big Give Christmas Challenge, a national match funding campaign for charities of all sizes.
We also support their annual Autumn sponsored “Sleepout” event which aims to increase awareness of homelessness in Hertfordshire and raised over £43k this year!
Providing free collection and recycling of the cardboard used for 120 makeshift beds and shelter saves them time and money and ensures the site was returned to normal immediately.
“To have someone like Cawleys help us is brilliant, they take away a complete headache for us and their pledge ensured we could join the Big Give Christmas Challenge and receive match funding for every donation!”
LOCAL SPORT
We partner with NTFC, to help manage the club’s recycling and boost their environmental credentials.
We provide a range of waste management services such as our specialist food waste recycling for anaerobic digestion - a greener alternative to landfill which converts food waste into green energy used by The National Grid.
We also support their Green Match Days, in association with Planet League, which includes litter picking sessions, encouraging sustainability and recycling initiatives in the ground and awareness workshops.
We are incredibly proud of this long standing relationship which has evolved to become a sustainability partnership.
Not only do we regularly advertise our recycling services in their matchday programmes and on their outdoor board placards, we also sponsor a young player each year and take care of all recycling and waste collection at the ground. We often have match tickets available for our staff to take advantage of.
Our involvement at Bedford Blues means we can give back to the local community by supporting sport at a grassroots level for the enjoyment of everyone involved.
GRASSROOTS SPORT
We are incredibly proud of this long standing relationship which has evolved to become a sustainability partnership.
Not only do we regularly advertise our recycling services in their matchday programmes and on their outdoor board placards, we also sponsor a young player each year and take care of all recycling and waste collection at the ground. We often have match tickets available for our staff to take advantage of.
Our involvement at Bedford Blues means we can give back to the local community by supporting sport at a grassroots level for the enjoyment of everyone involved.
Cawleys also take great pride in their support of Olney Rugby Club. Specifically, Cawleys provide sports sponsorship for The Colts, Olney RFC’s under 18s youth team.
This excellent selection of players are those who have progressed through the Mini & Junior teams into Senior rugby. The Colts are currently top of their league and are taking part in a National Colts Cup competition.
Managed by 4 coaches, the squad is almost entirely from players from the local area and Cawley's not only sponsor the kit, but also sponsor one of the players, Struan Brooks.
The recent annual Olney 7’s Rugby Festival provides a perfect example of the work we do to support local and national events. Attracting over 3,000 visitors, we provided all the required bins to segregate waste by type. Then we collected and recycled all waste immediately after the tournament, ensuring the site was left clean and tidy with minimum disruption to the local community.
“The support that Cawley’s have given Struan, this squad of players and to Olney Rugby Club in general is intangible. On behalf of all the lads in this photo, the club committee and the entire club - thank you very much for your support over the years. ”
EDUCATION
This year we are supporting the Community Trust to provide tailored weekly sessions to three local primary schools run by one of their Education and Sport mentors.
From mental health and well-being support to academic and sports sessions the mentors plan the provision based on the unique requirements of each school. Along with weekly mentoring the schools also receive match tickets, visits from club mascot Clarence, football tournament competitions and raffle prizes.
Club Mascot
As part of our mission to educate young people on the importance of recycling, we have also sponsored Clarence - the club’s mascot - to raise awareness and understanding of green initiatives across the local community and in schools.
We have recently provided funding towards the ‘Hobby the Horse’ Programme - a fun and educational programme for schools created by children’s charity Ride High.
Children in participating schools design and make their own Hobby Horse using recycled materials. Schools then host a fundraising event of their choosing where children will seek sponsorship for taking part with their hobby horses and earn themselves a rosette.
Designed to complement the Key Stage 1 Curriculum, the programme is incorporated into various lessons to support key areas of children’s learning and development: promoting and encouraging creativity, awareness of environmental issues including recycling, creative writing and physical activity.
MRF Tours Understanding The Waste Journey
We work for a wide range of educational organisations from schools to universities, plus of course, many of us are parents.
We have a deep understanding of the importance of educating our youngsters on how to care for the environment, minimise waste and maximise care for the natural resources of our planet.
You can’t beat seeing what happens to your waste to really get a feel for the issue to truly understand the waste journey and how a circular economy works. For this reason, we offer ‘behind-the-scenes tours’ of our MRF. To find out when the next one is taking place, please contact conor.rosling@cawleys.co.uk.
