The Jobtrain Foundation is close to all our hearts at Jobtrain, and never more so than at this time of year. As a business, we don’t just provide great recruitment technology, but we love to give back to our community too. And this Christmas time, we wanted to round up just how the Jobtrain Foundation has helped people throughout yet another difficult year - and we’ve also thrown in a Christmas quiz that for each download will directly go to helping one of our charities.
Each year, we allocate 1% of our revenue to the Jobtrain Foundation and to date, the Foundation has donated around £100,000 to various individual good deeds and charities.
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Here are just some of the brilliant things the Jobtrain Foundation has funded
We’ve funded mobility scooters; a quiet, sensory garden for a school in Stockport and recently contributed to some of our own employee’s charity work. We had Oli competing in a rowing challenge for Alzheimer’s Research UK and Giles running a half marathon for MacMillan Cancer Support.
BookTrust and the Children’s Poet Laureate
The BookTrust is another charity to have benefitted from our Foundation funding. It’s a wonderful charity that helps children across the country to access books, and often means these children will own a book of their very own for the first time.
Alongside this, the Jobtrain Foundation also sponsors a library in a Manchester school which this summer was opened by Cressida Cowell, the Children’s Poet Laureate and author of the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ books. Last Christmas, we were also delighted to help fund the donation of Children’s BookTrust ‘goody’ bags.
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Homeless Project Manchester (HPM)
The Homeless Project Manchester is where the Jobtrain Foundation was born and is very close to our hearts. The Foundation has been involved with them for over three years.
HPM is an entirely volunteer led organisation, led by the fantastic Damon, a carer and full-time student. He works tirelessly to help the homeless and the many families living in hostels around Manchester - and we’re just grateful we can help him and the charity with their amazing work.
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What we do to help
You might have noticed we don’t just contribute money to charities - we like to get stuck in and involved too!
The HPM struggled for years with transporting everything they need to the homeless – food, clothing, essential items. That’s where the Foundation stepped in with a fully kitted out van with all the storage they need to get items to the needy, quickly and easily. It’s helped them with weekly hot food runs, as well as delivering clothing, essential items and donations in and around the homeless hostels in Manchester.
Storage was also becoming a problem for HPM. Sometimes, they’ll receive bulk donations of clothing or essential items, but with no proper storage facility, it was becoming a real struggle for Damon and the team.
To solve this, the Jobtrain Foundation now funds a large secure lock up for them, along with regular financial donations to purchase essential items like toiletries, extra food, tents etc. Our brilliant CEO, Chris, and Director, Alison, regularly cook for the food runs and help distribute food and other goodies.
Feel Good Fridays!
We’ve recently started a new initiative with Feel Good Fridays - every last Friday of the month at Jobtrain HQ, our team will be building essential survival packs to go directly to the homeless in Manchester.
What will they include? The kits contain items such as underwear, socks, toothbrushes and toothpaste and washing items – and each Feel Good Friday we aim to build up to 100 kits.
Get your Christmas quiz hats on – the Jobtrain Foundation Christmas quiz is here!
As this is a Christmas feel good blog, we couldn’t resist including a Jobtrain tradition – the Christmas quiz! Download your copy of the questions and answers below 👇.
You’ll need to add your name and email address to download it – and when you do, we will add an item to an essential survival kit for the homeless. So, by having some fun, you'll be doing your bit for the Homeless Project Manchester too!