COMMUNITY SUPPORT

As a business, we work hard to ensure that we put something back into and provide some value to our local community.  Whether it's using our skills and expertise to support worthy causes or raising money for charities we aim, every year, to undertake some form of community benefit initiative as part of being a socially responsible small business.

Here's some details of a few of the initiatives we have established and supported over the last few years.

Local Community Sponsorships

There are so many amazing local initiatives to promote local worthy causes and fly the flag for small businesses too so we always try to sponsor a number of these when we can.  This year we were delighted to be able to support the following local community initiatives...

The Woo Hoo Awards - a superb evening to support and recognise local businesses that have achieved great things in the last 12 months. We were delighted to sponsor one of the Awards this year and support this important annual event on the local business community calendar.

St Albans Postboxes - each year a fabulous group of volunteers take time out of their busy schedules to add some festive fun to the postboxes of St Albans, Harpenden and the surrounding villages.  This project started in 2018 and has generated huge interest locally and helped bring a smile to the faces of so many local people and raised thousands for local charities.  This year we were delighted to support the 'postbox toppers' campaign by sponsoring a couple of boxes and giving a helping hand too setting up and keeping an eye on the toppers in our area too.   A fabulous local initiative that brightens up the day of local people throughout the festive period!

The Harpenden Guide Community App

The Harpenden Guide is a free Community App we designed and created to support local people and local businesses in and around Harpenden during the Covid-19 pandemic.

We launched the App (which can be downloaded free from the iOS and Android App Stores) and supporting website (www.harpendenguide.co.uk) in January 2021, with the Covid Pandemic in full flow, to create something that could support local people and businesses during this time. It was very much designed to be a local support project and from the outset we have been overwhelmed with the response it has received from local people.

The App is basically a unique mobile pocket guide to Harpenden.  It lists everything - what's on, local business information, local news, local places to visit, local Covid updates and a whole host of other useful local information too.

Since it's launch it has received over 2,500 downloads on the App Stores and received some great local support and coverage.  We continue to fund and support this community initiative and have also secured a local sponsor to help cover the running costs of the app as it continues to grow.



Volunteering for The Prince's Trust as a Business Mentor and being able to impart knowledge, skills and experience to young people starting out on their own business journeys has been an important part of supporting our local community.  Over the lst few years we've been delighted to be able to support a local young person as they have started out on their journey to set up and establish a Pet Care business with the support of The Prince's Trust.

It's been a pleasure volunteering our time to support Lisa Sinnot (www.albanypetservices.co.uk). In particular, it was great to see her learn, develop and grow and be nominated for an award of Entrepreneur of the Year in the Best Business Women Awards.

We love this role supporting and working with 18 to 30-year-olds to offer a guiding hand to support and advise them so they can turn their big business ideas into a business reality.

The Chocolate Ball

As a family of 'chocoholics' (and having also founded and run a family chocolate business), we wanted to do something to support our local hospices.  So we put our heads together and created the concept of The Chocolate Ball - an extravagant event for local people to enjoy whilst raising money for The Hospice of St Francis and Rennie Grove Hospice Care.  Ove two years we organised, sponsored and ran two superb events that in total raised over £15,000 for these local Hospices.

In addition, over 300 local people were able to enjoy a fabulous chocolate themed night out whilst helping raise awareness of and supporting these amazing local charities.