19 January 2011
After a year of fundraising, staff at Roche UK in Welwyn Garden City, have donated a massive £41,428 to Keech Hospice Care. This money will support our children’s hospice service which helps families whose children have life-limiting illnesses across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes. With more still to follow, the money will go towards the continuous care and support these families deserve – here at the hospice or at home.
Roche, who develop diagnostic and pharmaceutical medicines, chose the children’s hospice as its Charity of the Year for 2010 and throughout the year staff have got involved in everything from book sales to bungee jumps!
“When we first pledged to support Keech as our charity of the year, none of us could have guessed we would raise such a sum,” commented Gayle Holliday, Corporate Affairs Officer at Roche. “But it’s a local cause that has touched the hearts of so many of our staff that the fundraising throughout the whole year has just gone wild.”
The relentless fundraising efforts have seen Roche take part in over 30 different fundraising initiatives for us including a Midnight Walk through Stevenage, holding regular ‘bring and buy’ style book sales and even recently hosting a ‘Roche Has Got Talent’ contest where staff showed off their skills to colleagues as musicians, singers, dancers and comedians!
At the talent show, where Keech CEO Mike Keel was presented with the cheque, he said: “The support given to Keech by everyone at Roche has been quite remarkable and, to see such a huge sum raised during what has financially been a difficult year for a lot of people, is tremendous. We passionately believe in what we do, and this money is enough to cover the cost of caring for each child who uses one of our hospice bedrooms for more than two months! On behalf of everyone at Keech I would like to thank Roche staff for all they have done.”
Further fundraising efforts by the company include 2 members of staff undertaking a sponsored bungee jump and nearly 100 staff taking part in a 5k children’s walk from the office to the Digswell Viaduct.
Over the summer three groups of staff took part in banger rallies, travelling across Europe in customised cars costing under £150. One group spent 5 days driving 1,800 miles from Welwyn Garden City to Rome and the others spent 4 days driving for almost 1,500 miles to take part in one of Europe’s craziest rallies, the Ramshackle Valencia event.
In July, one employee was sponsored to join a group trekking across India and then in October and November two members of staff took on separate sponsorship challenges in Nepal.
Staff not only helped to raise funds but also rolled their sleeves up to get stuck into some volunteering projects for the hospice. Throughout September, over 100 Roche staff were involved in revamping a room at the hospice designed for teenage patients; working in the children’s garden at Keech; working in the Keech shops and warehouse; and delivering IT training to Keech staff.
Tracy Maddox, Keech Hospice Care’s Account Manager, said, ‘This was the largest corporate volunteering project we’ve had to date. It’s a fabulous example of how corporate volunteers can make so much of a difference to places like Keech. Everyone here is so grateful for what the Roche teams have done and how they have transformed the place.’
Gayle Holliday added: “Everybody at Roche is so proud of our year long efforts. Both fundraising and volunteering have been such rewarding experiences for us all and knowing we’ve made some difference to the hospice and the care they offer to children and their families is the best reward of all.”
