Smarter Giving Achievements

It’s been a busy few months for the area’s businesses participating in a variety of activities to support local charities and community groups through our Smarter Giving initiative. This has included donations of money and also clothing as part of our clothes drive, sharing skills through careers and advice sessions for local schools and charities, and various volunteering projects! Volunteers have clocked up over 190 hours of time and businesses donated £3,800 to support local appeals. Here’s a brief summary of just some of the activities that have taken place. 

Donations  

• Our Clothes drive in September saw more than 40 bags of clothing donated by businesses based at 10 Portman Square, 35 Portman Square, 40 Portman Square, 95 Wigmore Street as well as the teams at Double Tree by Hilton – Marble Arch, HSBC, Hyatt Regency London- The Churchill, Invesco, Knight Frank Promise and Metropolitan Gaming. A big thank you to everyone that took part.   

• Sainsburys donated food to Marylebone FoodCycle and also to Shadow to Shine for its youth workshop hosted at our Baker Street Hub.  

• Overbury donated five bird boxes to North Paddington Youth Club which were beautifully decorated by young people with special educational needs.  

• Aprirose donated eight office chairs to SmartWorks.  

• Derwent London sent a financial donation to King Solomon Academy in support of its Summer Fair.  

• The Portman Estate sent a financial donation to Newpin elderly drop-in centre for its residents’ summer trip to Brighton.  

Skills-Sharing 

• Forsters hosted a group of year 10 students from King Solomon Academy at its new offices on Baker Street, delivering a career and industry insight session. It also held an information session for women at the Marylebone Project. 

• HSBC delivered a career workshop with youth organisation 2-3 Degrees as part of its ‘Mastering my Future’ programme. 

Volunteering 

• Colliers International hosted a summer picnic for families at Home-Start Westminster. It also hosted a summer reminiscence afternoon based on seaside/traditional holidays with a quiz and refreshments for the elderly community at Penfold Community Hub.  

• Selfridges and Elemis both provided pamper sessions for members of staff from the Marylebone Project. Both teams also litter picked in Church Street area, just north of Marylebone Station. 

• Knight Frank helped out at a ‘Music in the Garden’ event with Penfold Community Hub, while a team from Knight Frank Promise painted and refurbished resident kitchens at the Marylebone Project. 

• Dorset Square Hotel hosted an afternoon tea for the women and staff at the Marylebone Project joined by Knight Frank Promise who hosted a 50’s swing dance session.  

• Metropolitan Gaming volunteered at St Mary’s Social Supermarket helping to hand out food for those in need.  

Our Smarter Giving initiative continues to go from strength to strength, with more of our members getting involved in a variety of activities to support vulnerable individuals and families in the area. A big thank you to all those that have supported projects so far.  

Interested in getting involved? You can find out more information here, or get in touch with our Community Impact Manager Hannah here.