Atelier’s Christmas Campaign 2018

In this post we’d like to take the opportunity to tell you about the campaign we have lined up for Christmas 2018. They say it is the season of giving, and that has certainly been at the heart of our plans this year.

We usually take a festive trip to visit clients with gifts, and a trip to the post office for those further afield. This year, we asked our clients to give to us (sorry guys!). This December we will be volunteering for Southampton City Mission . For a whole day, we will be helping them at their food banks across the Southampton area. We will be using the money and effort we usually put into our client gifts to provide much needed donations and support to this excellent cause.

Getting Client’s Involved in our Christmas Idea

Over the past fortnight we have been contacting all of our local clients to see if they can help. All clients who sign up will get a box in their office for their teams to fill with food and christmas goodies. We will then be taking all of the boxes, as well as our donations, over to Southampton City Mission’s warehouse. This will help them get it to those in need over the festive period. We are hoping to be able to donate around 15-20 large boxes full of food items.

Jess, our Project Manager who has been coordinating these Christmas activities said, “many of our clients have been very keen to be involved so we are hoping we will be collecting some lovely full boxes of food to take along with us on the day!”

If this is something you would like to get involved with, let us know. You can either donate a box of food items this Christmas or donating some time to help out, just get in touch!

food bank poster snapshot

Update – here is how we got on!

After dropping boxes to our local clients and collecting ourselves, we were ready to head down to help out! With 2 cars jam packed we headed down there ready for the gruelling task of unloading all the food! We were greeted by a very friendly team of volunteers who work incredibly hard. They’re there day in and day out to get food and essentials out to those in need.

Once we were unloaded, we rolled up our sleeves and got stuck in with unpacking all of the food. Once unpacked, it was then sorted out into different categories ready to be picked and packed for the food bank deliveries. We were completely overwhelmed by the generosity of our clients who got involved. Also, the sheer amount of donations that Southampton City Mission had received in time for Christmas. Ranging from food and drinks through to toiletries and baby items. The warehouse was pleasantly packed out with boxes and boxes of items.

The team at the warehouse were certain that us being there helped them to get through lots more work. With all of us working together we had been able to work through almost all of the unsorted donations. We have been invited back to help out again next year, and would encourage any other local businesses to do the same!

Thank you to the following businesses for their kind donations:

Take a look on our Twitter Account to get all the pictures from our client collections. Below are some snaps from the day:

the team with all the donations for southampton city mission

rachael, tom and james at southampton food bank

howard at southampton food bank