When you are a business owner it can give you freedom in lots of ways. It can give you the perfect opportunity to support your community in ways that you choose and are personal to you. There are many deserving charitable causes all around the UK and sometimes it is difficult to know who you may want to support and how. Here’s my story on how I came to support The Buddy Bag Foundation.
At our WiRE meeting at the end of November 2016, we had a presentation from Karen Williams. Karen has many years of experience in business and is a successful networker. She has worked tirelessly over the years in her own businesses and in recent times, she wanted to give something back and so, in 2014, she began to grow an incredible charity called the Buddy Bag Foundation.
Who does The Buddy Bag Foundation help?
The Buddy Bag Foundation supports children who find themselves in emergency care. They can arrive in emergency care for a number of reasons, including fleeing from domestic violence. When they arrive at the safe destinations, they have nothing but the clothes that they stand in. This is where the Buddy Bags help those children, they provide essential practical items like toothbrush, toothpaste, clean pyjamas and underwear. They also provide age appropriate activities for the children to do, to try and keep them occupied, often under extremely distressing circumstances.
I was so emotionally moved by the work that the Buddy Bag Foundation does, I was wondering how I could help. As Karen was talking through her presentation, she was asking for volunteers to help with their email campaigns and their social media. I jumped at the chance to offer my Mailchimp services. This was my way to help the Buddy Bag Foundation to make a difference by donating my services for free to them. Our Cannock WiRE leader, Cheryl Turner from Tao Business Solutions was happy to take on the Twitter account for the Foundation as well. So, it was a wonderful feeling to be able to do something in a way to give back. I now feel incredibly privileged to be called an Ambassador of The Buddy Bag Foundation.
The Foundation relies 100% on donations and puts 100% of those donations into the project. The money goes solely towards buying the bags and the items that go into them.
The Buddy Bag Foundation regularly has packing sessions where groups of volunteers gather, usually on a Saturday morning, to spend time packing all the bags. The packing sessions take place at different venues around the UK.
This month marks an incredible achievement as the charity has packed its 6,000th bag! That means there are 6,000 children that have had a little bit of comfort and love given to them in their Buddy Bag.
There are lots of ways to help The Buddy Bag Foundation. Are you a business with a product you could donate? Are you an individual or family who would like to help with the bag packing or would you like to make a donation to help the Foundation? If you are interested in any of these ways to help or want to find out more information you can find out how to volunteer.