About Growth HQ

We had a brilliant afternoon helping out at Cherry Tree Nursery in Bournemouth, the Growth HQ team got their hands dirty by helping out with loads of gardening activities with a bunch of other volunteers. Cherry Tree Nursery provides vital sheltered work rehabilitation for people with severe and enduring mental illnesses around the Bournemouth area, and the team really enjoyed being able to support some of their incredible work.

We have previously supported Action for Children Dorset Nightstop, a local charity that provides young homeless people aged 16-25 with emergency short-term shelter. We were thrilled to hear how much our donation contributed to the charity, our donation provided: 50 bed nights for young homeless people, transport for 25 young homeless people to a volunteer host for the night and 5 volunteer hosts with specialist training on how to support young people who have experienced trauma.

Over the winter period, the Growth HQ team previously volunteered with Re-engage as part of their Christmas Call Companions initiative. As a call companion, the team had regular phone calls with an elderly person experiencing loneliness and isolation. These friendly chats provided a lifeline of friendship for elderly people over this particularly lonely and isolating period. We also decided to donate a portion of our profits to Re-engage to help them to continue supporting the elderly in plenty of other ways.

Over the winter period, a charity we chose to support was Hope for Food. Hope for Food is a local charity based in Bournemouth providing food and support to people in need of help due to the prevailing economic climate. In total we donated over 500 items to Hope for Food and had lots of fun loading up the van on a dark and rainy evening!

Earlier this year we had the pleasure of taking the Bournemouth Gateway Club to the Oceanarium for the day – a charity close to our team’s hearts. Their philosophy is all about valuing and supporting people with a learning disability, their families, and their carers. They visualise a world where people with a learning disability are valued equally, listened to, and included. We know so many individuals rely on Gateway and with government funding cuts affecting the charity we wanted to do what we could to help.

Surfers Against Sewage are on a mission to protect our much loved ocean. We are part of their ocean network directory because we donate a percentage of our profits to the charity each year, and last year we decided to take part in one of their beach cleans. With our HQ based in Bournemouth we know only too well how polluted the ocean and the beach can get, so we wanted to do our bit to not only support the charity, but hopefully help prevent the issue.

Last year our donation helped to remove 89,909kg of rubbish through the Million Mile Clean and supported their Election Bus Tour to key constituencies in order to ensure ending sewage pollution is on top of the political agenda.

CARAS is a leading refugee charity in South West London who provide firm foundations for new-arrival asylum seekers to build happy and successful lives. Last year we donated a portion of our profits which paid for 11 swimming lessons. The CARAS Swim Program not only helps to build confidence, but also gives young people opportunities to learn essential life skills. CARAS does some truly inspiring work and it was great to hear that our donation helped 10 young people from 4 different countries graduate from their Swim Program.

Just before Christmas, the GHQ team spent an afternoon volunteering at their local foodbanks, in Bournemouth and Hackney. Witnessing first hand the amount of hard work and dedication it takes to keep our local foodbanks operating smoothly, along with how many people heavily rely on them for so much more than food was truly eye opening.