A team of employees from a housebuilding company volunteered to help out for the day at a children’s hospice charity.
Five members of staff from Vistry Kent gave up their time on Friday 1 July to assist staff at Demelza Hospice Care for Children, a charity which provides specialist care and support for babies, children and young people with serious or terminal conditions and their families in Kent, East Sussex and south-east London.
The charity, which helps over 600 children every year, has hospices in Sittingbourne in Kent, and Eltham in south-east London, and provides a community hospice at home service from its base in St Leonards, East Sussex.
The volunteers from Vistry Kent, which is based in West Malling, spent the day at the charity’s retail warehouse in Maidstone.
Jennie Steer, senior corporate partnerships executive for Demelza, said: “We are so grateful for the volunteering time that Vistry staff provided in our Maidstone retail warehouse. The warehouse is the central hub of our retail operation supplying our 29 charity shops with stock all year round and is the base for our e-commerce team selling quality, second-hand items online.
“After a tour of the building, the team got straight to work sorting and bagging seasonal stock and ensuring that anything non-saleable was separated for rag. At Demelza we are committed to sustainability and virtually nothing goes to waste, so this is a really important process.
“The team were fantastic and their hard work was so valuable, contributing 26 hours of volunteering in just one day. Volunteering is just one of the ways that Vistry has supported Demelza as a corporate partner and we are extremely proud of this brilliant collaboration.”
Millie Groves, marketing manager for Vistry Kent, said: “As a company we are committed to encouraging staff to volunteer in their local communities and for charities and organisations that mean something to them.
“This is a charity which is close to our hearts in the Kent region. All our staff were amazed at the size of the warehouse and how much goes on there and were delighted to be involved.
“We have built up a special relationship with Demelza which provides an amazing service to families who are trying to navigate a really tough time in their lives. We are more than happy to be able to assist them in any way we can.
“The day at the warehouse was very informative but also good fun. We all rolled our sleeves up and got stuck into sorting out clothes that were due to be sold to raise much-needed funds for the charity. It was a pleasure to be able to make ourselves useful and to be able to learn a bit more about how Demelza works.”
Vistry Kent has donated £6,600 this year to Demelza after selling off furniture from show homes built under the Bovis Homes brand at its Rosemead Place location in Horam.
Vistry Group consists of Bovis Homes, Linden Homes and Vistry Partnerships. For more information about the new homes being built by Vistry Kent, visit lindenhomes.co.uk and bovishomes.co.uk.
To get to know more about Demelza, visit demelza.org.uk.
