Dedicated
Whitehouse Butchers have been donating meat prizes and vouchers to charity through many charitable organisations for many years. We’ve had so many thoughtful thank you messages from these charities and it really does warm those cockles! This way we were helping lots of charities a tiny bit but we had a thought. Wouldn’t it be better to focus all of our fundraising and donations to one charity?
We decided that the time had come to decide on a single dedicated charity. We would support and donate as much as we could to their cause.
Decision
The plan was set but the execution was a different story. Deciding on a single charity was proving a very difficult decision. Each and every person has a charity close to their heart, through personal experiences and these experiences differ so much. Choosing a single national charity is instantly recognisable but we thought that this may alienate backers of other national charities when they are all so deserving. Also, our mission was to really impact a charity. This would be difficult to achieve with so many backers of organisations such as Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation. The UK’s top 100 charities raised an impressive 9.1 billion in the 2015/16 financial year¹.
Local
Finding common ground between our many customers was the key to finding the perfect charity and that key was their location. A local charity helping members of the local community who need that extra little bit of help. That is what we were looking for, we now just needed to find them!
Once again, we looked to our amazing customer base for inspiration, as they know their local communities better than anyone. We used our various social media platforms to ask our customers for their suggestions… they didn’t disappoint. The suggestions were plentiful and the stories sent to us were truly inspirational. One charity, in particular, kept popping up, one that we had never heard of.
Foundation
Enter The Olive Circle Foundation! A Cannock-based charity that help fundraise events for various causes, who are relative newcomers. They hold events to raise money for children’s operations, some of which couldn’t be performed in the UK. The #cancersucks lollipop appeal was instigated by them, adverts for which you can see in the image above. They also help the elderly with household chores they just can’t manage. Their charitable efforts are endless. They are a small team and dedicate their time to help others less fortunate or less able in addition to running their own family lives.
You can see the many amazing things they do to help the local community on their Facebook page. Their efforts are so evident on their timeline. Giving back is what they do best and they made our final decision very simple indeed.
Their logo represents their ethos: If all of our hands held out an Olive branch, we could create an endless circle of giving.
Christmas
We thought the festive season would be a perfect time to help out The Olive Circle Foundation in every way we could. That’s why, in addition to collection boxes, we’re helping them with Christmas dinners. However, these will be for those spending Christmas alone this year. They asked for a discount on the meat required but we thought they deserved the meat donated completely. However, we’ll be conducting other exciting fundraising events in-store and online throughout December. Keep a lookout!
Donate
If you want to donate to The Olive Circle Foundation, you can find collection boxes in each and every one of our stores. You can also use the Donate button below to give straight to the charity or alternatively visit their Just Giving page below. You will also find lots of inspirational comments from donors on their Just Giving Page too.
