Helping with Hands is a non-profit foundation, started by the Barenbrug Family. With this foundation, employees are encouraged to contribute to society in the form of volunteer work. The Foundation’s objective is to support charitable projects in line with our views on sustainable business and corporate social responsibility. The parameters for Helping with Hands support include, but are not limited to, projects in the field of environment, education and sports.

Part of the support offered by Helping with Hands is providing staff with a paid leave of absence to participate in qualifying projects. So, while Helping with Hands will provide a monetary contribution, all projects should allow for Barenbrug staff to get ‘hands-on’ and help beyond a mere donation. Here in the UK we have embedded Helping with Hands into the very core of our CSR activities.

The team at Barenbrug UK were keen to partner in the true sense with a local charity and make real and measurable impact in the local community. With Helping with Hands requiring a charity in the sector of environment, sports or education, Green Light Trust quickly came to the top of the pile when reviewing charities to get involved with.

We put the ultimate decision for the choice of charity to our team and they came back strongly supporting Green Light Trust - as it turns out, several members of the team have been involved directly or indirectly with Green Light Trust at various points in their careers; either through forest school training or with friends, children and neighbours attending courses at Green Light Trust. Having that first-hand account of the good that GLT does really helps bring the cause alive for our teams.

Being able to get involved with our hands (and donations) brings the charity to life for our team here at Barenbrug UK, as well as gives us all a change of pace and scenery once in while! It also enables us to make good on our desire to bring ‘real and measurable impact for our local community’.

The key to our enduring relationship with Green Light Trust is the ability to get actively involved, doing more than merely donating money to a faceless, distant body of people. The physical proximity of the charity, coupled with the fact that Green Light Trust operates in and for the local community that the majority of our staff live and work in, deepens our connection and strengthens our bonds.

Established in 1989, Green Light Trust (GLT) is a UK registered environmental charity that believes in the power of nature to transform lives. With its head office in Lawshall, between Bury St Edmunds and Sudbury, Green Light Trust runs progressive wellbeing and educational programmes in Frithy Wood, near its Lawshall HQ, and at its other Suffolk locations: Castan Wood in Martlesham Heath and at RSPB Minsmere, as well as at other green sites across East Anglia.

The charity’s beneficiaries are adults, children and young people who have poor wellbeing and/or barriers to life progression, and who need support to rebuild and refocus their lives. Green Light Trust works with over 1800 adults and children each year.

www.greenlighttrust.org