My RMG Living Account
Giving Back: Booth Centre Christmas Appeal
As the saying goes, “charity begins at home,” which is why we partnered with local Manchester charity, The Booth Centre last year, who provide unconditional support and guidance for homeless people in the area.
In December, we ran a food drive in aid of the centre which received an overwhelmingly generous response. We collected hundreds of items, including tinned foods, toiletries and much needed winter accessories for service users. We loaded up the transit van on Wednesday, 22nd December to ensure that all items were delivered in time for Christmas.
This Tuesday was our second visit to the centre, headed up by Regional Manager Paul Hitchen who had this to say about the experience:
“We were all delighted to be involved in this experience which was extremely rewarding and humbling.
The team at the Booth Centre are amazing and create an environment that allows visitors to feel safe and welcomed. The Centre is extremely efficiently run which means that the needs of all the visitors can be met as quickly as possible. The efficiency extends to how the volunteers are utilised, as volunteers were assigned tasks from the outset to ensure that their time spent at the Centre is busy and productive.
Jobs range from helping in the kitchen, administering shower and phone usage to having a brew and a chat with the visitors. After breakfast we all joined in with the activities which were arts & crafts and crown green bowling. In addition there were English classes which helped the visitors with CVs for job applications, driving licence applications and ID requests. The staff were all appreciative of the roles completed on the day. Rumours that Justin dished out more beans in a day than they normally do in a week cannot be verified, although he was demoted to rice distribution in the afternoon.
I am sure all those present will agree that the day is extremely valuable and would recommend to anyone wishing to attend future visits. We are all keen to look at other ways that we can help the Centre.”
Special thanks to our lovely volunteers including:
Paul Hitchen
Justin Herbert
Simon Pearson
Paul Golds
June Foster
Jack Apperley
Michelle Cliffe
Jamie Goodwin
We’re looking forward to continuing our support of the centre throughout 2018. Next up, The Great Manchester Run!
The centre is always in need of friendly volunteers to serve breakfast, help with housekeeping and generally be a ray of light to the visitors each day. If you’d like to get involved, check out their website for more details.
