As Volunteers’ Week (1-12 June 2016) gets underway, Linden Homes has announced that 2,132 hours of volunteering time has been delivered by its employees across the country over the last 10 months, as part of the Linden Homes Foundation initiative.
The Foundation, set up by the award-winning housebuilder in June 2012, is also celebrating its fourth anniversary since it was launched as a community initiative to spread the local benefits of housebuilding beyond the construction site.
The initiative was set up to unite the company’s involvement with local neighbourhoods and to show the real-life benefits of housebuilding and as such has encouraged staff members to get involved with community engagement in local areas. Theonline archive of community support now contains over 650 individual examples from around the company’s regions showing the positive effect on people, communities and the environment.
Highlights of Linden Homes’ recent volunteering commitments have included providing people and resources for restoration / renovation projects at a community centre in Normanby and a not-for-profit furniture up-cycling service, RE:Furnish, in Redcar. The housebuilder also worked closely with children at St. Oswald’s Hospice in Jarrow on a hedgehog themed environmental topic and developed a Christmas card competition with Brighton Avenue Primary School, in Gateshead, that raised funds to support educational visits.
The company also takes part in Children North East’s annual sandcastle competition and has raised over £13,000 by holding two charity balls in honour of the local charity. In addition to this, Linden Homes works with schools across the north east hosting both careers events and health and safety talks.
Linden Homes’ divisional managing director, Stephen McCoy said: “As a result of The Linden Homes Foundation, communities have enjoyed the benefit of extra investment, support and our expertise.
“It is fantastic to see so many of our staff get involved with projects that form part of the initiative. The time committed to volunteering is invaluable to local communities and charities and we look forward to our continued work to support these organisations.”
The Foundation was also one of the factors that helped Linden Homes gain recognition among the top performers in NextGeneration – a national benchmark which puts the spotlight on housebuilders for their sustainability.
Linden Homes retained 4th position in the NextGeneration 2015 sustainability benchmark for the second year running, up from 8th in 2012.