MOVING charity forward The British Red Cross and Oceanair International Corporate Movers combine in the UK to increase the flow of much needed stock donations, while providing expats on the move with an easy way to pass on their unwanted personal and household effects to charity. Stock donations are the lifeblood of The British Red Cross charity shops. The recent economic downturn has seen a surge in charity shop customers but a lessening of stock donations. As British Red Cross shops are responsible for 11 per cent of the charity s fundraising, a partnership with Oceanair International Movers and the resulting steady stream of stock donations could not have come at a better time. The British Red Cross is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the world s largest independent humanitarian organisation. It is volunteer-led, helping people in crisis, whoever and wherever they are. The British Red Cross enables vulnerable people at home and overseas to prepare for and respond to emergencies in their own communities. And when the crisis is over, the Red Cross help people recover and move on with their lives.
Oceanair International, the corporate household goods moving specialists wanted to support a charity and their local community as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility policy and devised an economic way of doing this while also supplying a solution to an age old problem for international assignees of what to do with unwanted household goods. No longer will international transferees have to leave unwanted or unneeded items in their lofts, with family or pay for small storage consignments during their short or long term assignments. This is because on the day of the move with Oceanair International the packing crew will collect unwanted items and deliver them to the British Red Cross, all free of charge. Unique labels in the shops have also been arranged between the British Red Cross and Oceanair International, in order to better track the quality and donations from this special partnership. This partnership has only been going since 2011 but already almost 100 lorry loads of re-usable, re-sellable and recyclable items have been delivered to the British Red Cross by Oceanair International Movers from generous customers and employees. The donated items are currently selling in seven Red Cross shops across London and have already raised thousands of pounds for the charity (2010 = 500 raised / 2011 = 8,000 raised).
Both Oceanair International and the British Red Cross expect the success to continue, and look forward to raising thousands more in the next few months and years. The money raised from this partnership will be spent by the British Red Cross on a range of vital services both in the UK and overseas. This could be anything from first aid training, emergency response operations, tracing missing family, medical loan services or elderly care in the UK; right through to helping those affected by recent large-scale disasters in Haiti, Pakistan and New Zealand. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far to the Red Cross via Oceanair International s new system of bringing charity into the home For further information on the Red Cross please visit www.redcross.org.uk To contact Oceanair International please visit www.oceanairinternational.com
The apprentice A further enhancement to this great partnership is for corporate charity days, where an Oceanair corporate client / relocation provider that Oceanair are a supplier for will run a British Red Cross shop in London for the day. Oceanair will also run a separate shop and in the evening everyone gets together over dinner to see who the winner is and which member of the losing team gets fired. These corporate charity days usually see profits in the individual Red Cross shop increase by 100%, usually because neither team wants to lose and everyone will get their colleagues, family and friends on board to buy items from their shop. And of course the real winner out of this is the Red Cross.
The Box Drop Oceanair International Movers and the British Red Cross can arrange for large Red Cross donation boxes to be delivered to small companies (reception area) as well as large companies (one box on each floor), usually on a Friday. The HR team can preadvise all staff that this will be happening, and that they have a week / the weekend to kindly bring to work any small items (unwanted toys, games, books, bedding, clothes etc ) and place them in the charity box. Oceanair International and the British Red Cross will then arrange to collect the boxes and deliver them for free to the nearest sorting centre and everything will be tagged for sale in the Red Cross shops.