Andrews & Partners staff rasie over £70,000 for charities supported by ACT
To mark the companies 60th year, the twelve-month Project60 Challenge invited
all staff to try and raise £60,000 for charity. By the end of March 2007, over
£70,000 had been raised! “To the best of our knowledge we are the only estate
agency group to have charitable heritage and the humanitarian spirit of our
founder Cecil Jackson Cole runs through everything we do. Through our three
charitable trusts (ACT, Christian Book Promotion Trust and The Christian
Initiative Trust), our successes can help others bring about the changes they
need to sustain a better life for the future. And Project60 was a way of
celebrating this further sharing in the ideas of our founder some sixty years
after the company first began trading“, said Chief Executive Michael Robson
The Project60 fund has been split between two charities that were nearing the end
of their formal partnership with ACT. Advantage Africa and Robin Hood Ministries
who work with impoverished communities in Kenya and Romania respectively. Robin
Hood Ministries has received more than £35,000 for playground equipment, a soup
kitchen, medical supplies and legal aid project. And at the end of June some of
the company’s top fund raisers headed out to Romania to see first hand how their
money was now benefiting hundreds of people living in the city of Iasi. “We
helped to build a playground whilst we were there and he kids loved it. Without
it there was very little joy in their lives – it really was lifeline and you
could see it in their faces” said Felicity Parker, Branch Manager of Andrews
Clifton (Bristol) office. Advantage Africa has already received £35,000 from
Projects60 which has been spent on a school for disabled children, a feeding
programme for children orphaned by AIDS and a school kitchen. A second group of
Andrews hardest working fund raisers visited some of this work in Kenya in
October 2007.
Following the completion of Project60, staff were asked how they felt about the
charitable scheme and where you'd like to see it go in the future*. 72% of you
got involved with Project60 - more than half (60%) in your own free time. A
quarter of you (28%) achieved a personal goal as a result of the initiative,
three quarters (76%) said you felt Project60 had a positive impact on branch
morale. One in four (28%) said you felt Andrews had attracted more business as a
result of the initiative. At the end of the year, Michael Robson thanked
everyone for their involvement with Project60 concluding, “This is a truly
befitting end to a magnificent year and we really couldn’t have done it without
you. I’m touched by your response. Raising an additional £10,000 may of left
some people overwhelmed – I however, knowing all of you, am not the least
surprised you had this in you!”
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