Employees from Santander’s Edgware branch recently spent the day at the Calthorpe Project Community Garden helping to prepare the grounds for the opening of its new café.
The activity, which was part of the bank’s Discovery Days scheme, saw eight employees from the Station Road branch help construct a new path, create new planting areas and build new shelving to grow organic herbs and vegetables, which will in turn be used for meals in the café. The opening of the Calthorpe Garden Café is part of a closed loop food production, distribution and waste recycling micro system, and is unique in central London.
The Calthorpe Project aims to provide a community centre and garden to improve the quality of life of local people. The project provides a sustainable food growing space and programme of environmental education as well as supervised activities for children up to the age of 14 and their families. The project also offers a volunteer and training programme to create new opportunities for local participation and education as well as horticultural training for adults with learning difficulties.
Gaven Duffy, Volunteer Manager at The Calthorpe Project said: “I would like to extend my personal thanks to the cheerful, enthusiastic Santander volunteers. We’re incredibly grateful for the work they completed; they did a fantastic job.”
Nan Nan Yin, Regional Manager at Santander’s Edgware branch said: “It felt great being able to give something back to our community. We chose The Calthorpe Project as their new Garden Café is a unique and exciting venture that will make a real difference to the local community.”
Santander’s Discovery Days scheme encourages staff to take a day out of the office to volunteer with a local cause. Last year over 3,900 members of staff took part in more than 360 projects across the country, including refurbishing local schools, hospitals and helping with community projects.
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For More Information:
Antonia Green
Citigate Dewe Rogerson
020 7282 2967
antonia.green@citigatedr.co.uk
Twitter: @santanderuk
Notes to Editors:
Santander Community
The Discovery Project, launched in January 2016, is Santander’s new flagship community programme that aims to build skills, grow knowledge and support innovation to help people have confidence in the future. Santander’s current community programmes including MoneyWise, WorkWise and Discovery Days have been brought together with new initiatives including a schools programme called FutureWise, and Discovery Lab events. Together with The Discovery Foundation and Santander Universities, over £20 million will be invested in good causes in 2016. Over the next five years the bank aims to benefit one million people in local communities through the programme.
Santander UK is a financial services provider in the UK that offers a wide range of personal and commercial financial products and services. It has brought real competition to the UK, through its 1|2|3 products for retail customers and relationship banking model for UK SMEs. As at 31 December 2015, Santander UK was one of the most switched to banks. The bank serves more than 14 million active customers with c. 20,000 employees and operates through 857 branches and 70 regional Corporate Business Centres. Santander UK is subject to the full supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in the UK. Santander UK plc customers are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the UK.