Employee involvement takes many different forms, ranging from sporting challenges to raise sponsorship, holding a fundraising event or volunteering time to give day-to-day help to a charity or school. Organisations supported include local hospices, schools and brownie packs, and both national and local charities.
The WHSmith Trust Annual Christmas Giveaway makes donations to a wide range of charities with which employees are involved in.
Each year, grants totalling £20,000 are distributed to around 100 employee-nominated charities. Charities benefiting from the Christmas Giveaway include national charities, such as Breakthrough Breast Cancer or the NSPCC, local hospices, schools and many other community organisations operating across the UK.
The Trust’s ‘Volunteers in Schools’ scheme aims to support members of staff who are regularly involved as representatives on either a school’s governing body, or Parent Teacher Association.
The Trust receives many requests from schools asking for support. Every month the Trust holds a raffle and the winners receive a donation of WHSmith Education Achievement Reward Vouchers.
National Literacy Trust Summer Reading Programme
During the summer the WHSmith Trust, WHSmith PLC and the National Literacy Trust work together to deliver the Reading is Fundamental ‘Summer Read’ programme aimed at maintaining literacy levels, promoting the fun of reading, the importance of book ownership and the benefits to families of sharing books at home. Each year, over 3,000 children take part in over 100 ‘Summer Read’ events across the country
Each child chooses two books to keep and also receives a book bag, bookmarks and stickers.