A record-breaking number of Edenred staff participated in this month’s Ideal Day, volunteering with charities local to our Chester and London offices.
In London, Board Directors Johann Vaucanson, and Andy Philpott renewed Edenred’s commitment to food distribution charities, The Felix Project, and City Harvest, presenting cheques to each.
At The Felix Project’s Poplar warehouse, Edenred volunteers worked in the kitchen chopping and slicing food for the Chef to cook. They packed up the meals for delivery to over 3,000 Londoners, an achievement the charity delivers daily.
Other staff pulled on their trainers to support Felix’s Green Walking Scheme, collecting surplus food from participating suppliers and delivering it on foot to local charities.
Over in Acton, West London, colleagues were busy at City Harvest’s warehouse, unloading deliveries, checking, and storing crates of fresh produce and sorting bread into ‘best before’ dated crates for delivery.
For the first time, staff supported Refuge International, a charity based in central London that provides a mobile outreach service to the homeless. Staff donated clothes and toiletries and packed parcels for distribution at the outdoor soup kitchen. The team also delivered meal parcels to rough sleepers across Central London.
Meanwhile staff from our Chester office continued to support The West Cheshire Foodbanks helping to sort and deliver food and hygiene products donated by staff.
Environmental sustainability
One of Edenred’s core business values is environmental sustainability. For the first time, this year staff from our Chester office, which borders the beautiful North Wales coast, could choose to spend the day with a charity that supports this cause.
On Talacre Beach, volunteers joined a clean-up to make the beach safer for wildlife and more beautiful to visit.
A little further inland, staff joined the Canal and River Trust at Christleton, Chester, to improve the canal area, painting fences and locks, trimming overgrown shrubs and overhanging branches as well as litter picking.
Elsewhere at the Aberduna nature reserve staff tended the tree nurseries and got physical scything and racking bracken on the nature reserve to manage the grassland.
Reflecting on the day, Colin Hodgson, Sales Director said:
“What incredible weather for the Edenred UK team to be out and about engaging in a number of different environmental and community projects for Edenred Ideal Day. I had the pleasure of volunteering with colleagues and the brilliant Canal & River Trust team at Christleton Locks, painting new fences and engaging with members of the public using the canal network and tow paths. Amazing to also learn a little of the history; 200-year-old lock gate technology invented by Leonardo da Vinci still used today, with each gate weighing 3.5 tonne!” -
