The UK’s community bank, Metro Bank, gives every colleague a Day to Amaze – essentially a paid day off to support a local charity or good cause. To help support St Giles Hospice, Baz Thompson, Adam Randle and Jesse Hameed from Metro Bank’s fraud team volunteered to help at the annual Tree Cycle.
Located at both Whittington and Sutton Coldfield, St Giles Hospice is a registered charity which supports patients and their loved ones living with a terminal illness. The teams provide individually-tailored care, free of charge, either at the hospice or in patients’ own homes across their local communities.
St Giles Hospice spends close to £10 million a year providing its specialist services – only 18% of this funded by the Government, so the charity relies heavily on donations and income generation from the local community.
Baz, Adam and Jesse crewed two vans on behalf of the Whittington hospice and collected over 60 trees, from peoples’ home addresses who donated to the charity to have their tree collected. That week the hospice managed to field ten crewed vans and raised over £100,000 for the charity from the tree collection donations.
“We thoroughly enjoyed volunteering and had a fantastic day away from the office – covering more than 150 miles collecting the trees,” commented Baz Thompson, Head of Fraud, Metro Bank. “It’s such a fantastic service to be able to offer and the money raised is a huge help to keep the hospice running.”
Jesse Hameed, Fraud Prevention Specialist, Metro Bank “It was a really good fun experience and also very rewarding, I will definitely be back next year to support the hospice again.”
Adam Randle, Fraud Strategy Manager: ‘I am so glad that we were able contribute in helping raise much needed funding for the hospice for all the great work they do and I too look forward to helping again next year.”