Staff at People’s Partnership have helped raise a record breaking £12,993 to Crawley Open House over the past 12 months.

The 900 workers at the leading workplace pension provider have helped raise much needed funds for the town’s homeless shelter after they nominated it as their charity of the year for 2023/24. During this time, they’ve arranged a series of fundraising events such as a raffle to win a week of holiday that had been donated by the CEO Patrick Heath-Lay, which raised £4,682.

Patrick and his colleagues Nyree McGowan and Teresa Brown raised a further £2,674 when they spent a night on the streets of Crawley last autumn as part of the Big Sleep Out initiative.

Throughout the past year, teams of staff at People’s Partnership, which is based in Manor Royal, Crawley, have cooked £1,500 worth of meals for a total of 440 people using the centre after volunteering their time to work in the kitchen. Funds have also been raised via initiatives such as a bingo night, a guess the number of sweets in a drive competition and a collection of food vouchers.

Commenting, Nicola Sinclair, Head of Responsible Business at People’s Partnership, said: “As an organisation which was founded for social good, we pride ourselves on demonstrating these beliefs through supporting our local community, of which we’ve been part of for the past 60 years. Crawley Open House is a remarkable charity which not only offers food and shelter to the most vulnerable in society but also provides them with hope and a purpose.”

This week, staff at People’s Partnership, which provides The People’s Pension to more than 6.5 million workers across the UK, voted for Age UK to be their staff charity of the year for the next 12 months.

Ian Wilkins, Head of Relationships and Fundraising at Crawley Open House, said: “We have been so blessed to have been People’s Partnership’s Charity of the Year for the last 12 months. Staff from across the Company have stood with us in all sorts of ways, especially by raising a fantastic amount of funding towards our vital work, and spending hundreds of hours volunteering in our hostel kitchen. We can’t thank them all enough and wish them all the best in working with the fantastic cause Age UK in the coming year.”

ENDS