Volunteers in our Edinburgh and Glasgow offices have been throwing themselves into volunteering work this November in a continuing effort to drive up the hours of charitable support donated by staff throughout our bicentenary year.
Kids Love Clothes (KLC)
This is an Edinburgh charity providing help for local struggling families with young children by providing good quality used clothes. The charity creates a stylish gift bag into matching outfits to last a child for a minimum of a week. The free gift bags are put together with care and attention, the hope being that by doing it this way the families who receive the gift bags can maintain their dignity in difficult times.
Coordinated by Fiona Linklater, Director in Edinburgh, members of our Commercial Property team organised collection points to be set up in each office and made a call for donations of children’s clothes ranging from premature baby to age 10. All donations were then ingathered to the Edinburgh office where the team sorted the clothes into age specific black bags.
Fiona Linklater said: "We were absolutely thrilled with the amount of clothes donated by our colleagues. In the end we sorted almost 60 black bags worth of children’s clothes which will make a huge contribution to the number of gifts bags that can be contributed to KLC recipients."
Fiona continued: "I met Julie Diver, one of the founders of KLC and was very taken with the idea of recycling much loved kids clothes directly to those in most need. I am so pleased to have been able to support the charity both with collecting the donated clothes and by volunteering to help with the enormous job of sorting the clothes in ages and outfits for the gift bags.”
The initiative was set up in 2009 by Fiona Shapcott who operated from home and worked with a small network of parents and referral organisations including health visitors, midwives and social workers. Due to the success and growing demand, the service continued to grow and gained charitable status in 2013, and has seen increased demand each year. To date, KLC have provided over 2000 gift bags to families in need across Edinburgh and Lothian.
Braehead Wheelchair Curling Club (BWCC)
This community project was set up in 2002 by five curling players who had a vision of playing more against each other and against able-bodied curlers and to compete in future Scottish Championships.
On Monday 29 November, the club held its first "Short Curling" Competition. The Club's short curlers, long curlers and helpers all took part with four teams competing over three games with assistance from a few members of Lindsays staff. Angie Malone, British Paralympian and World Champion Wheelchair curler, came along to watch and present the prizes to the winners.
Alison Atack, Partner in Lindsays Glasgow office, commented: "We had such an enjoyable afternoon helping out at the competition, both out on the ice as well as serving coffee, tea and sandwiches and with the presentation of prizes. It was a very exciting competition and I hope they do manage to make it an annual event."
Membership is continually increasing and the Club now includes over twenty wheelchair members and several able-bodied members. BWCC is proud to be open to both able-bodied and disabled people and has an impressive record, representing Scotland and Great Britain in various international events including a number of World Championships and Paralympics. Most recently two members of BWCC were in the squad at the Paralympics in Sochi who won the bronze medal.
Blythswood Care - Shoe Box Appeal 2015
Dedicated staff from our Edinburgh and Glasgow offices were keen to get involved with this worthy project and 55 shoe boxes full of gifts were generated to be sent to people in Europe, Africa and Asia for Christmas.
Tracey Robertson, a secretary in our Edinburgh office, came across the Appeal on Facebook and was inspired by the video on the website to get involved. She said: “I was really moved by the impact the simple gifts in shoe boxes had on the recipients, especially to see the beaming smiles on the childrens’ faces. It really motivated me to get involved and I am so pleased that we collected so many shoe boxes from colleagues.”
Blythswood Care combines the Christian message with practical help and has been supporting people with relief and development aid in various locations across the world since 1966. In the run up to Christmas the aid loads focus on shoeboxes filled with toiletries, clothing and other gifts.
As well as the Shoebox Appeal, Blythswood Care offers aid to various projects in Albania, Hungary, Kosovo, Moldova, Romania and Serbia throughout the year. A typical load could consist of food, clothes, medical equipment, specialised furniture for schools or hospitals, industrial machinery, toys, tools and agricultural equipment.
