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Woolworths Kids First - Registered Charity Number 1073947 |
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What is Woolworths Kids First? |
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Woolworths Kids First is an independent registered charity launched in June 1999. Its primary purpose is to enable Woolworths’ employees to support community-based projects of their choice to benefit children. Involvement in the scheme is voluntary with responsibility taken at a local level for each initiative. |
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The charity plays an important role in enabling Woolworths to be at the heart of the local communities it serves and is an ideal fit with Woolworth’s core values and brand ethos. |
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What does Woolworths Kids First do? |
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Woolworths Kids First aims to improve the quality of children’s lives in local communities through fund raising and by offering time and expertise for the benefit of children. Since launch, over £6,500,000 has been raised though employees, customers and suppliers. Selected product is also sold through Woolworth’s stores, part of the profits of which is donated to the charity. |
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Who benefits? |
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To date, over 5,000 causes for children, chosen by Woolworths’ employees, have already benefited from the work of Kids First. They range from individual children, children’s hospices, schools/education establishments, users of disability aids and children’s sports clubs and teams. |
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Who gets involved? |
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In the last nine years, employees and customers in over 800 Woolworths’ locations, stores, offices and distribution centres, have actively participated in Kids First initiatives. |
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Over time, involvement in the charity has broadened thanks to the enthusiastic support of Woolworths’ stakeholders, in particular Woolworths’ suppliers who have learnt about the charity through high profile fundraising events, now established as a regular feature of Woolworths’ community programme. |
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Playground Partnerships |
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Central fundraising activity has also enabled the formation of a grant-giving programme called Playground Partnerships. This award winning scheme enables primary and special school children to define their dreams for their playgrounds and gives them a chance to turn those dreams to reality with grants of up to £10,000. |
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Playground Partnerships aims... |
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To produce a resource that stands alone and offers practical and useful advice that is of educational value to pupils, teachers and other members of the school community. |
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To empower pupils to make decisions about their school environment. |
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To involve pupils in every stage of the development – from consultation, through the creative and design stages to the implementation and maintenance of the playground. |
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To recognise the potential for transforming playgrounds (‘distance-travelled’) by schools as well as the absolute need of schools, i.e. the focus will not just be deprived areas. |
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To offer awards amounting from £1000 to £10,000. |
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Scope of the launch in 2004 |
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The scheme was piloted in 50 primary schools in the Kent and Essex areas in 2003. The purpose of the pilot was to ensure that when launched nationally, it is useful for teachers, motivating for pupils and of benefit to schools. |
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Since launch Playground Partnerships has been able to grant over £1,800,000 to 800 schools in the UK. In our fifth year, up to £250,000 has been allocated and we are expecting over 8000 schools to request a free resource pack. The schools involved this year will prepare their submissions in the summer term with judging taking place all over the UK. Winners will be notified in November 2008. |
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To learn more, visit www.playgroundpartnerships.org |
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Every year since 2001, Woolworths has received the prestigious Business in the Community Big Tick Award in the Cause Related Marketing category in recognition of the excellence of the community programme as demonstrated by the partnership with Woolworths Kids First. |
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In 2005, Woolworths was also awarded the Retail Week CSR Award for Education for Playground Partnerships, developed by Woolworths Kids First. This would not have been possible without the help, support and encouragement of our many suppliers. |
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Woolworths also won the 2005 Hollis Education Sponsorship Award and was one of five companies short-listed to become the 2005 Business in the Community Company of the Year for Education. |
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We introduced a major new initiative in 2007 to allow our customers to recycle their unwanted mobile phones and at the same time raise money for Woolworths Kids First. By logging on to the Recycle with Woolworths website customers can find out the value of their mobile phone, decide to recycle it and then receive its cash value. An extra ten per cent of the phone’s value is automatically donated to the charity. Customers can also elect to give a percentage of the money they receive back to the charity. |
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Working with our partner SHP, the phones are fully tested and refurbished and then sold on to developing countries. Any handsets that are beyond economical repair are recycled in accordance with the WEEE directive. Encouraging our customers to recycle their old mobiles rather than throwing them away, also helps prevent contamination of the environment. |
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Woolworths was the first major retailer to introduce such a recycling scheme online. Since its launch in September, Recycle with Woolworths has raised over £4,000 for Woolworths Kids First. Ink jet cartridges have just been launched on the site and we hope to extend the scheme to MP3 players and iPods during the year.
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Contact details
For further information please contact in writing:
Woolworths Kids First
242 Marylebone Road
London NW1 6JL |
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