Thank you to all of our volunteers: Cadent Social Responsibility Specialist Laura Barnes reflects on past volunteering highlights and looks to future plans
The power of volunteering has made and continues to make a real difference to our communities and society and the stories we’ve been sharing over the past week have shown just a small snapshot of what’s been going on.
Since Britain’s largest gas network Cadent was established in 2017, our employees have been lending their efforts to various charities and local organisations.
Our teams have rolled up their sleeves, given their time, skills and most importantly their enthusiasm into delivering local projects that support local need.
Without volunteer support some of these activities would not have been possible.
Our teams have completed projects for homeless accommodation units, school outdoor play areas, local and national foodbanks, special educational needs colleges and at Southend Beach to mention but a few and our collective efforts since 2017 has seen over 216 colleagues give over 1,300 hours which has directly benefitted over 128,000 people across our footprint.
Cadent and its employees have also done a great to support our official charity Alzheimer’s Society, raising over £200,000 of vitally needed funds to support those living with dementia and their families. We’ve also raised awareness of dementia with over 84% of our workforce attending dementia awareness training and our own ‘Dementia Champions’ delivering awareness sessions for many organisations.
The national emergency triggered by coronavirus has seen Cadent and its staff take volunteering the next level with our coronavirus volunteering effort. The scheme is open to all 4,000 of our employees and provides them with two extra days of paid leave a month.
Since the scheme launched in April of this year our volunteers have helped out the NHS, Age UK, Royal Voluntary Service, the Lancashire Volunteer Program, Mutual Aid volunteer group, Masks4FrontlinersUK and the Social Mobility Foundation along with other local authorities, charities and community groups.
Our employees have assisted with the delivery of food, medical supplies, care packages and PPE to those in urgent need of them. They’ve also manufactured face shields, raised money for the NHS with a music video and participated in telephone befriending and mentoring.
With the scheme extended for June and July there will be potentially thousands more volunteering days provided to help good causes.
I’ve seen first-hand the difference volunteering can make. I’m part of the national volunteer befriending service ‘Companion Calls’ for Alzheimer’s Society and since the lockdown I’ve been helping local organisations with donations of materials which are being turned into medical scrubs and face masks.
To all those who have played a part in our volunteering initiatives Cadent’s message is you will always be our #gasheroes and on this #VolunteersWeek we salute each and every one of you.
Our plans for volunteering go beyond the end of the pandemic, and from April 1st 2021 we’ve committed that from 2021-2026 at least 60% of Cadent employees will volunteer for at least one day to support a community scheme.
We look forward to sharing more stories of what our volunteers have been up to, and who knows they may be working on a project in your area soon.
• #volunteersweek and https://cadentgas.com/about-us/responsibility