Recently, we have been very pleased to have the opportunity to work with a lot of volunteers from our corporate partners, who have visited Caritas Anchor House to help with a variety of events and some good old-fashioned manual work.

Members of staff from Newton Europe, Ashby Jenkins Recruitment and Direct Line Group have dedicated their time to activities as disparate as cooking for our residents, providing photography skills for events, running craft classes and setting up our internal food bank.

A couple of weeks ago, we welcomed volunteers from Fitch Ratings, Clifford Chance and The Alchemist at Canary Wharf to help us with the preparation of a large space in our building for some refurbishment works. Working five hour shifts in some dusty conditions, the teams sorted through a large amount of furniture and various items in order to fill three skips to the rear of the building and prepare other items for either re-use or for us to sell on to new owners.

Everyone came armed with a great attitude, rolled up their sleeves and came together as a team. In some instances, the teams were made up of employees who had never met, and it was great to see everyone pull together for a common goal.

In addition to this being a great team-building exercise, the work that has been undertaken has meant that we are ahead of schedule in the preparation for our renovations, and this has provided invaluable assistance to our maintenance team, meaning that we can now push forward with our plans (watch this space for news about this!)

Some of the feedback we received from the volunteers included:

• “I was most grateful for being able to work with the guys who were our main coordinators on the day. One of them had been homeless before he was able to land a job with Caritas Anchor House, and it was working with him (as well as my Fitch Ratings colleagues) that really made the day an enjoyable experience….getting out of the corporate bubble for a short spell!”
• “Everybody enjoyed the day out from desk life and seeing the phenomenal difference in the space.”
• “It was such an enjoyable day, and I was so glad that we were able to beat the expectations of our coordinators.”

There are always opportunities for volunteers from corporate organisations to come and help here at Caritas Anchor House, so if you think you would like to work with us on projects such as these, please get in touch with our Corporate Partnerships Officer, Andrew Warburton, on 0207 476 6062 or at a.warburton@caritasanchorhouse.org.uk