22
December
2021
|
15:01
Europe/Amsterdam

Openreach gives a festive boost to Home-Start in Blackpool

Openreach’s workforce in Lancashire and Cumbria has launched a Christmas campaign for Home-Start to support some of the UK’s most vulnerable families and children. 

During a week of action across the UK, volunteers from the digital network business set out to collect more than 15,0001 gifts for 5,000 children across more than 60 Home-Starts in places from Caithness, Manchester, Bradford and Dunstable to Cardiff, Minehead, London and Dover.

It included around 2001 items collected by the team in Lancs and Cumbria, with Openreach engineer, Andrew Haines, making the bumper delivery to the local Home-Start branch in Blackpool.

The volunteers handed over dozens of priority items on the charity’s shopping list that would bring a smile to children this Christmas, including games, toys and books, arts and crafts, selection boxes, cosy blankets, hats and gloves along with wrapping materials and gift bags.

It’s part of a wider Christmas campaign across BT Group2 in support of Home-Start, which is one of the company’s UK Charity Partners along with UNICEF and the British Asian Trust.

Andrew Haines, Openreach engineer and Lead Elf for the Lancs and Cumbria collection, said: “Openreach is focused on wellbeing in our workforce and giving to others is fundamental to this. Earlier this year our fibre engineers collected thousands of items for food banks, and we decided to do it all again for Home-Start to support vulnerable families this Christmas. This time the whole of Openreach and BT Group has got behind it – and we’ve been overwhelmed by the response from our people.

“We know times are tough for so many families across the UK right now. We want to help make sure there’s a smile on the face of every child supported by Home-Start this Christmas.”

More than a decade has passed since Openreach engineer Chris Farmer’s family was first involved with Home-Start, and the charity’s support was even more vital when the mother of his children passed away, leaving him to bring up two small children single handed.

Chris said: “Home-Start is close to my heart as they helped us out as a family when my kids lost their mum. It wasn’t the easiest of times, with my son and daughter both being under six, but the help we got was amazing and we’re in a good place now. We’re still in close contact with the Home-Start co-ordinator who helped us to this day – she has become a family friend.

This has been a fantastic opportunity to give something back this Christmas and the support from across the company has been overwhelming. It’s brilliant to see what can be done collectively as a team. It’s going to make a big difference on Christmas Day when kids wake up to a bagful of toys, games, chocolate and sweets – there’s a multitude of gifts been donated.”

Home-Start is a local community network of trained volunteers and expert support providing compassionate, confidential help to families with young children through challenging times. With more than 180 local, independent Home-Starts across the UK, and more than 10,000 fully trained home-visiting volunteers, the charity supported 56,000 children in 27,000 families last year. More than 100 children are referred to their services every day.

Vivien Waterfield, Deputy Chief Executive for Home-Start UK, said: “We are delighted that Openreach is supporting our families with this incredible project. Our goal is to make sure no parent feels alone, by standing alongside families with compassionate, non-judgemental community-based support. It has been a difficult year for families so we are thrilled that these Christmas gifts will help bring a smile to children and their parents.”