Tag: Basket Brigade

Helping families in South London at Christmas time.

Helping families in South London at Christmas time.

By DR June Sanico Leave a comment 18 Dec 2017

On Thursday 14th December we partnered with The Salvation Army to help disadvantaged families in South London.  It was a huge team effort with employees from Learn to Trade, volunteers from the Salvation Army and volunteer friends and family who all helped in the organisation and throughout the day.  

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(Learn to Trade employees and volunteers helping to pack the hampers)

We kicked off at 9am and started packing 100 hampers with essential food items that will help these families through Christmas.  These food items are the foods that push up your household food bill, so for us to help out at Christmas in what can be a very hard time financially anyway, is extremely important.  Every family that had a child/children in their family also received a personalised present especially handpicked to suit their age group, wrapped and put into a gift bag.   

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(Food hampers ready to go… )

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(presents ready to go)

By midday the deliveries started and this is when the real rewards began! To see the families faces light up as we knocked on the door is truly the most special moment.   Some laughed with joy, some cried with joy but every single one of them were so thankful and it really does make you realise how hard life can be and how much of a difference these hampers and presents will make to them. 

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(Dean Russell ready to deliver presents) 

We certainly recommend that if you have never done anything like this before, please do. 

 

Medical Clinic

Medical Clinic

By Marie Sorli Leave a comment 17 Jul 2016

horfi-kids-preformingHad such a great time at the Manila-based orphanage, House of Refuge, handing over the medical clinic we have sponsored for the orphanage! 

Now some of you might not know that Greg’s grandmother was an orphan who was taken in by Dr. Barnardo’s. Greg often says that if it wasn’t for him, he might not be here today. Children and especially orphans are therefore very close to the Foundations heart. Last year, Greg visited the House of Refuge, as a part of a Christmas initiative he does with staff from his companies to provide Christmas joy to the less fortunate called Basket Brigade. Each year, Greg and his companies find a local cause close to their office and donate care packages in form of food and presents for children. In 2015, the Philippines-based staff of Learn to Trade went to House of Refuge, an orphanage that cares for abandoned and neglected children who live or work on the streets.

When there, Greg heard their plans to build a medical centre for the children under their care. These remarkable young children have been through a lot, and when they are rescued, suffer from multiple conditions which need medical care. House of Refuge has doctors that volunteer at their centre, but sometimes needed to take the children to the hospital to spend the night or to do more checks. For some of the children, it was quite traumatic to be taken away from a space where they finally felt safe, so the refuge wanted to expand their services and provide the children with holistic care at their own premises. 

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Greg and the team were so inspired by the hard work of the House of Refuge staff, and the change this fantastic charity has made to the lives of hundreds of children. At the time, the orphanage had one major donor covering half of the cost of the medical centre. After speaking to the board, we decided that the foundation would help them in reaching their goal and decided to fund the remaining so the kids would have their new medical clinic. Two months later the other donor pulled through, but we felt that this was something the children could really benefit from and decided to shoulder the entire cost to help them.

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We are so happy to announce that in July that promise was fulfilled and we opened the doors to a brand new two-storey medical clinic kitted out with medical equipment and child-friendly furniture. It’s been so appreciated that the children sometimes pretend to be sick, just so they can spend the night in one of the two sick rooms and play with the toys. We are so happy to be able to assist this fantastic organisation and so grateful to be a part of these wonderful and talented children’s lives!

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The clinic is dedicated and named after Greg’s grandmother, Maud Chapel.

It’s been a truly great and emotional day for us all and with that, we sign off for today.

Basket Brigade – Merry Christmas!

Basket Brigade – Merry Christmas!

By Marie Sorli Leave a comment 23 Dec 2016

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Each Christmas, Greg’s companies donate staff time, food and presents for families in the local area who are struggling over Christmas, with the foundation organising and planning the event. This year, we have held basket Brigades in the UK, Australia, and the Philippines.

In the UK, we worked with the Salvation Army Wandsworth, helping 76 families get by this Christmas. As our CEO Greg said,

“It’s a great way to drum up some Christmas cheer to the families. Many of us are lucky enough to have families and friends who buy each other presents and food, so it is good to give to others and help them through, what many find a lonely and difficult time.”

On December 20th, we packed 76 food boxes and gifts for 161 children, which we hand-delivered to the families and the Salvation Army. Basket brigade is an initiative we are so proud to be a part of, and we are extremely grateful to Greg Secker, Learn to Trade UK, SmartCharts, Capital Index and FX Capital for their passion to contribution, which enabled us to help so many families this Christmas. It was a great day and we had a lot of fun organising it.

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Basket Brigade is an alternative Christmas party and the one that staff look forward to every year. Here in the UK, London Live came along to our Basket Brigade as we urged more companies to get involved and spoke about the rise of foodbank users the past years. It may sound shocking, but 1 in 5 families use foodbanks at least once in their life here in the UK. 

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Not only has Greg’s companies done basket brigade in the UK, they have also held them in Australia and the Philippines! In the Philippines, the team bought presents and delivered them to the children of House of Refuge, the Manila-based orphanage the foundation donated a medical clinic to earlier this year!

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In Australia, Learn to Trade was spreading the Christmas Spirit on behalf of the Greg Secker Foundation with a visit at Wesley Mission! 

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We had such a rewarding and fun time, but hope that next year there will be fewer families in need of our assistance.