21 Dec All wrapped up! Our charity initiatives for Christmas 2023
Christmas is a time for giving, and in 2023 Hammersmith BID was able to connect our local businesses with charities providing much-needed services. Below is a round-up of our charity activity this Christmas, with thanks to all who were involved!
This year we partnered with Livat Hammersmith to run a series of Conscious Christmas events inside their meeting space. Our Christmas Jumper Swap was a hit and saw 20 festive jumpers swapped by local residents and workers – a great way of reducing textile waste and a continuation of our popular clothes swaps, which have run throughout 2023.
At our Charity Christmas Wrapping Station, our elves wrapped 180 presents and raised £768.27 for local charities, including Starlight Children’s Foundation, Barons Court Project and West London Welcome. Thanks to volunteers from CAA who helped with wrapping, and to our charity volunteers for spreading the word to shoppers.
We were pleased to donate £500 to the Big H&F Christmas Lunch. Taking place at the Novotel London West, the event hosts up to 500 vulnerable and elderly H&F residents and provides them with a free two-course meal and a day of festive cheer, live music and free transport to and from the venue. This year, there was a touch of Hollywood glamour as Hugh Grant helped to serve up Christmas lunch for attendees!
We know our Hammersmith businesses are always looking to give back to the community and for Christmas 2023 we facilitated two volunteering gift wrapping sessions at Starlight. Employees from Accor Invest, A+E Networks and Mindspace helped to wrap gifts that Starlight sends to seriously poorly children in hospitals over Christmas.
We also helped two local offices donate items to charities; Veson Nautical had unneeded office furniture and Kingtex Group were able to donate unworn, much-needed warm items of clothing.
Christmas is a busy time for one of our regular charity partners, Barons Court Project, and we were able to help 10 Hammersmith Grove organise a pop-up fundraiser at their building. We also helped to arrange three pop-ups for Barons Court Project to sell their Christmas cards in the Broadway Centre.
If your business is interested in future CSR opportunities at any time of the year, take a look at our Volunteering & CSR page, or get in touch with a member of the team on info@hammersmithbid.co.uk.