My first CSR day
Shauni Pollard, Chartered Legal Executive, talks about her first CSR experience volunteering at St Luke’s hospice.
St Luke’s is a Sheffield based hospice that provides support for anyone affected by terminal illnesses. Each year they care for more than 1,800 patients, as well as their families and carers.
Figures from St Luke’s website show that this year alone they need to raise a massive £7.5million in funding to carry on operating as they do.
With 15 charity shops and donation centres situated across Sheffield, St Luke’s relies on the dedication and hard work of staff and volunteers to ensure the donations received are utilised to generate maximum income for the hospice.
I recently had the wonderful experience of volunteering at their Ecclesall Road shop with a couple of my colleagues from the serious injury team at Minster.
By the time stock was delivered to the shop, it had already been through a rigorous sorting process elsewhere to ensure all items were of a suitable quality, and then packed into categories for easy identification.
My colleagues and I spent the day making our way through this stock, tagging and pricing items, then hanging them ready to be steamed and placed on the shop floor for sale.
Our jobs were made rather challenging by the temperature during the heatwave. However, we rewarded ourselves with a nice, iced coffee to cool down, before returning to test our creative flair, dressing the window displays and styling the mannequins with our top picks from some of the lovely summer items donated.
Not only did I come home with some purchases of my own, but also new skills, fantastic memories, and a valuable insight as to just how hard the incredible employees and volunteers work behind the scenes. I left feeling positive, motivated and like my colleagues and I had contributed to something truly amazing.
I am grateful to work for a company like Minster who encourage staff to partake in giving back, and I am already looking forward to my next CSR experience!
More information about St Luke’s can be found on their website.
