SATCoL Colleagues Offer a Helping Hand at Christmas

Colleagues spend a day volunteering at Salvation Army shops or donation centres across the UK as part of the Helping Hands initiative.

Every year, Salvation Army shops welcome thousands of customers, process tonnes of donations and get involved in hundreds of projects to help their local communities. During the Christmas season, office and field based colleagues at Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd. (SATCoL) were invited to spend a day supporting their chosen shop or donation centre through SATCoL's very first 'Helping Hands' initiative.

Julie Field, Head of Retail for South said: ‘Christmas is traditionally one of the busiest trading periods for retailers. This year, we saw a unique opportunity to bring our office and field based colleagues closer to the retail experience by inviting them to lend a helping hand in our stores during the festive season. Helping Hands gives supporting colleagues the chance to see how their role fits within retail and how their work connects to our shared mission.’

“Was great to get stuck in and understand the challenges that our colleagues are facing every day. Lovely to work with and get to know the team a little better too! Thank you Billie-Jo and the team for the warm welcome!” – Jaqueline Atkinson, Regional HR Manager

Colleagues signed up for the Helping Hands initiative by choosing a day to get involved at their local shop over the Christmas retail season as well as which area they would be happy to help out in such as stock processing, ecommerce, gift aid or furniture collection.

From the middle of November through the month of December, 50 colleagues across 9 different departments signed up for Helping Hands and spent approximately 350 hours helping at SATCoL shops. They came back with a smile, great stories and new experiences, all of them, eager to participate again in the years to come.

“ I think the highlight of my day was when a gentleman came in with a Christmas card to thank the team for helping him earlier in the day with some warm clothes in his time of need. Thank you for all you do” – Stuart Grainger, Development Support Co-ordinator

“Thank you to the wonderful Northampton Superstore team who gave me a warm welcome for the Helping Hands initiative! The day was filled with productivity, laughter and memorable conversations. Thank you to the fab ladies that made it a great day!” – Sabine Petkevica, Internal Communications Co-ordinator

Thank you to our shops for hosting and thank you to our colleagues for taking time out of their busy days to offer a Helping Hand.

To find out more about how the Salvation Army supports communities across the country, click here

For more on what's happening at SATCoL, click here