Morgan Sindall’s Infrastructure office on the West Lakes Science and Technology Park has recently undergone an office refurbishment. As part of the refurbishment the office was left with surplus office furniture, which was still fit for purpose, so it was extremely important to the team that the furniture was rehomed instead of being sent to landfill.
Working closely with local charities through Cumbria Exchange, the team re-homed the furniture to new organisations, in total five local organisations benefited from the donations: Impact Furniture Services, Distington Big Local, Home To Work, the Distington Fareshare project and Cumbria Exchange.
The donation consisted of: 20 sets of drawers, 20 desks, 10 dividers, a cupboard, a fireproof cabinet, 2 notice boards, a coat stand, and a carpet. This was divided between the not for profit organisations according to their requirements.
All listed organisations responded to the offer Morgan Sindall Infrastructure placed on Cumbria Exchange. All organisations used the furniture to improve their own offices, creating a better space for staff and volunteers to work, therefore improving their employee wellbeing.
Jo Ritson from Impact Furniture Services said:
“IFS is a Social Enterprise and our objective is to help people in the community furnish their homes with low cost second hand furniture whilst helping to reduce waste going to landfill. Our offices in Workington were in desperate need of an uplift and we were delighted when Morgan Sindall Infrastructure kindly offered to donate their office furniture and carpets to us. This will help us to create a better working environment for our staff and volunteers and will really brighten the place up. Thank you to Morgan Sindall Infrastructure for your kindness and generosity and for helping us on our journey to recycle and reuse”.
Shelley Hewitson, Chief Officer of Citizens Advice Copeland said:
“Thank you for sourcing the cabinet for the food project in Distington. I was with the volunteers recently and it is being used by the group to store non perishable food donations, bags etc. It has made a huge difference to the support we can offer Distington residents.”
Photo: Distington FareShare volunteers and Catrina Lazonby, Copeland CAB
Gillian Johnston, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure’s Community Engagement Advisor said;
“We are delighted to have been able to support a number of local charities /social enterprises with our surplus office furniture. We look forward to liaising with each of them in order to understand the impact these donations have made”.
What was achieved? Benefit
Improved working environment for staff and volunteers. The donations allowed each “not for profits” funding to be targeted directly at delivery of services.
Find out more about the parties involved:
Morgan Sindall is a UK construction and infrastructure business with a network of local offices. The company works for private and public-sector customers on projects and frameworks. Activities range from small works and repair and maintenance, to the design and delivery of complex construction and engineering projects where it is able to provide specialist design, tunnelling, utilities, building, civil engineering and mechanical and electrical services. The company operates across the commercial, defence, education, energy, healthcare, industrial, leisure, retail, transport and water markets. Morgan Sindall Infrastructure is part of Morgan Sindall Group plc. https://construction.morgansindall.com/
Impact Furniture Services are a non-profit organisation. Predominantly staffed by volunteers they receive donations of used furnishings that they re-sell at an affordable price, or donate to those in desperate need. Their other services also include removals, furniture revamps, and an affordable new furniture range. https://www.impacthousing.org.uk/impact-furniture-services
Distington Big Local is part of the Big Lottery funding project to improve 150 towns and villages in the UK. They aim to use the lottery funding to improve the community living in the area via submitting and carrying out a number of projects over 10 years. Some of these include: the building/upgrading of bus shelters in the Distington area, and the development of 41 dementia-friendly homes. http://distingtonbiglocal.org/
Distington Fareshare provides emergency food weekly to those in crisis. The scheme was set up in July 2018 as a trial and now has a core team of 5 to 6 regular volunteers, all from Distington. Approximately 34 families benefit from the Fareshare which is delivered through a partnership of Copeland CAB, Whitehaven, Egremont & District Credit Union, Distington Big Local and Distington Club for Young People.
The scheme has expanded to offer a school uniform exchange and plans to offer items such as toiletries and sanitary products.
Home To Work/Skills4You
Home To Work Ltd is a charity and company limited by guarantee providing support services for individuals living in the local community. To date the company has supported over a thousand local social housing tenants through the provision of gardening and odd job services and since 2014, the introduction of unemployment programmes through Skills 4 You.
Skills 4 You (S4Y), is hosted by Home to Work and provides access to skills training for disadvantaged individuals residing in Copeland.
Facebook: @Skills4youHTW