12/19/2012 (press release: OnlinePR) // UK // Rachael Jones
Hundreds of gifts have been collected in a special appeal organised by The Midcounties Co-op Travel to help spread some cheer to women and children spending Christmas in a refuge.
Generous customers, members and colleagues have donated toys and toiletries at its branches in the West Midlands, Shropshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Wiltshire to go to refuges run by charity partner Women’s Aid.
New items were all individually wrapped for opening on Christmas Day. Any previously used toys will be presented to the refuges for their playrooms.
Heiddi Rowley, Senior Travel Advisor, said: “Colleagues enthusiastically got behind the appeal and we are grateful to everyone who supported it. To donate gifts for people you don’t know in these times when money is tight is so touching.
“I’m sure it will make a difference to the families who receive the toys and toiletries to know they are not forgotten and that their local community is thinking of them this Christmas.”
Travel colleagues spent a day gift wrapping the donated items at the Springvale Sports and Social Club in Bilston before they were distributed to three refuges in Wolverhampton, West Mercia and Stratford-upon-Avon. Group General Manager Alistair Rowland and Sue Reid, the General Manager, Travel Distribution, also called in to lend a hand.
The previous week ten volunteers from the business showed their support for the charity by taking part in a community challenge to paint an apartment at a refuge in the Wolverhampton area.
The Midcounties Co-op Travel, a locally owned and independent business, is part of community retailer The Midcounties Co-operative. Midcounties is supporting charity partner Women’s Aid, the key national charity working to end domestic violence against women and children.
Its businesses have been raising funds and awareness to support the charity’s work nationally and eleven local services that operate within its trading areas, including refuges at Shropshire, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Wyre Forest, Warwickshire, Wycombe, Oxfordshire, The Forest of Dean and Gloucestershire.
Colleagues have also got involved in campaign work for Women’s Aid.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
The Midcounties Co-operative has been named ‘Co-operative of the Year 2012’, recognised for its excellence, innovation and ethics in business by Co-operatives UK.
It has headquarters in Warwickshire, with trading outlets in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Shropshire, West Midlands, Worcestershire and the surrounding counties.
The Society’s trading groups are food retail, funeral, travel, pharmacy, childcare nurseries, employee benefits and energy. Midcounties is the largest independent co-operative society in the UK and has more than 470 branches and 245,000 active trading members. It is also in ‘The Sunday Times Best 25 Big Companies to Work For’ list for the second year running.
The Society’s mission statement is ‘To be a successful consumer co-operative working towards creating a better, fairer world, and to enhance the lives of our colleagues, members, customers, and the communities we serve’.
For more details call Rachael Jones or Louise Evans at Seal on 0121 616 5800
Visit www.midcounties.coop
The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2012 as the International Year of Co-operatives, highlighting the contribution of co-operatives to socio-economic development, particularly their impact on poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration. The Year will highlight the strengths of the co-operative business model as an alternative means of doing business and furthering socio-economic development.
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