Shrewsbury & Oswestry Crucial Crew has received £5,000 to fund a safety education event, giving practical advice to as many as 1,500 students in their final year of primary school across Shropshire.
The donation was provided by the Santander Foundation, which offers Discovery Grants to UK registered charities for projects that help disadvantaged people in local communities.
Shrewsbury & Oswestry Crucial Crew has provided a two-week safety education event for 11-year-olds from more than 50 primary schools in Shropshire. The aim of this education is to teach young people essential life skills and give them the experience and knowledge to deal with various situations as they transition to secondary school.
Thirteen safety and social awareness scenarios were delivered on a wide range of topics including: internet safety and cyber bullying; hate crime; safety on or near railways, rivers and the coast; farm and building site safety; as well as drugs and alcohol abuse. These were delivered by a number of organisations and services including: the local police, the fire service, Shropshire Council, St John's Ambulance, RNLI, the National Farmers’ Union, British Transport Police, Veolia and Western Power Distribution.
The safety education programme, which is run by the trustees and 100 volunteers, was originally conceived by the police in 1994 and since then has provided advice to 27,000 children from the local area. This year the event was endorsed by the Director of Public Health for Shropshire, the MP for Shrewsbury & Atcham, a representative of West Mercia's Police and Crime Commissioner, The District Governor of Rotary, The Mayor of Shrewsbury and Shropshire Council specialists in drug and alcohol abuse.
Geof Proffitt, trustee fundraiser at Shrewsbury & Oswestry Crucial Crew, said: “Support and recognition by The Santander Foundation not only endorses the hard work of the committee and over 100 volunteers, all of whom are unpaid, but it also re-energises everyone involved with the charity and for that we are truly grateful.”
Kathryn Whelan, Select Relationship Manager at Santander’s Shrewsbury branch, said: “The Santander Foundation makes hundreds of donations every year to good causes throughout the UK. We are committed to playing a key part in the community and we are delighted to be supporting Shrewsbury & Oswestry Crucial Crew and hope the donation makes a real difference to local children. In Shrewsbury, one or two members of the branch staff are pleased to attend as volunteer chaperones as part of their own personal development.”
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Notes to Editors:
Media Contact
Leonora Burtenshaw at Santander
Email: leonora.burtenshaw@santander.co.uk Tel: 020 7756 4543
Geof Proffitt, Trustee fundraiser at Shrewsbury & Oswestry Crucial Crew,
Email: gaproffitt@hotmail.com Tel: 07788 184255
About Shrewsbury & Oswestry Crucial Crew
The overall purpose is to provide young people living in the Shrewsbury & Oswestry area of Shropshire with essential life skills, safety and social awareness training in order to help them advance in life by developing their skills, capacities and capabilities to enable them to participate in society as independent, mature and responsible individuals. For more information please visit: http://shrewsburyoswestrycrucialcrew.wordpress.com/
Santander Foundation
The Santander Foundation is at the heart of the Bank’s community activities, providing grants to small charities and social enterprises working with disadvantaged people to fund skills, knowledge and innovation projects across the UK. Discovery Grants of up to £5,000 are available to support three types of activity:
- Explorer: improving people’s knowledge
- Transformer: supporting skills and experience
- Changemaker: innovative solutions to social challenges
Over the last five years, the Santander Foundation has provided £26 million in funding to 13,914 UK charities through Discovery Grants and Staff Matched Donations. For more information please visit: www.santanderfoundation.org.uk
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 innovative products for retail customers and relationship banking model for UK SMEs. At 30 June 2018, the bank has c24,200 employees. It serves around 15 million active customers, via a nationwide branch network, telephone, mobile and online banking; and 64 regional Corporate Business Centres. Santander UK is subject to the full supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in the UK. Santander UK plc customers are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the UK.