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Waitrose Wins Award...

Partners of the Bury St Edmunds Waitrose, Megan Thomas and Grace Fouracre, attended  an awards ceremony at the Waitrose Head Office in Bracknell on 5th January 2012.  The awards ceremony involved the Prime Minister, David Cameron, who presented the Managing Director of Waitrose, Mark Price with a Big Society Award.  Waitrose received the award in recognition of its Community Matters Scheme, where customers donate green tokens to local charities. It has already seen £10m donated to 30,000 local good causes.

At the awards Mark took the opportunity to explain Waitrose’s plans for supporting local communities in the year ahead.  This included the launch of their new Partner Volunteering  scheme, which will enable Waitrose partners to donate a total of 75,000 hours to local charities and good causes in their communities

The aforementioned Partner Volunteering Scheme was trailed here in East Anglia.  Seven partners at the Bury St Edmunds store, including Megan Thomas and Grace Fouracre, have used their customer service and retail experience to assist in St Nicolas Hospice.  Megan and Grace discussed this rewarding work enthusiastically with David Cameron at the awards.

Due to the success of the pilot at St Nicholas Hospice, and other partners helping out at charities such as animal rescue centres and environmental projects, the scheme has been able to extend nationally.

Steve Mattinson, Branch Manager of the Bury St Edmunds Waitrose, said, ‘Here at the Bury St Edmunds store we are so pleased with how our contributions have helped the local community, and the fact the scheme has been extended to the rest of the country just displays how well the trail went.’ Regarding continuing with the scheme in the 2012 Steve said, ‘We are going to strengthen our link with St Nicholas Hospice but also hope to build links with other local charities.’