December has been a busy month for the Burness Paull Foundation, with the firm’s annual Christmas Appeal helping local charities in each of our three cities.
This year colleagues gave gifts and monetary donations to VSA (Aberdeen), LIFT (Edinburgh) and Glasgow’s Spirit of Christmas.
The Burness Paull Foundation added to colleagues’ generosity and donated £1000 to each of the charities to further assist with their fantastic work supporting those in our communities who need a helping hand.
Grieg Slatter, Business Development Manager at VSA said: “We've been overwhelmed by your generosity since launching our Christmas Appeal! We visited our good friends at the Burness Paull Foundation where their staff had so kindly donated gifts and goodies to help bring a smile to vulnerable people this festive season along with a £1,000 donation.”
Pauline Bowie, CEO and Founder of LIFT added: “Massive thank you to everyone at the Burness Paull Foundation for the amazing donations and also funding of £1,000, that has been handed in to us for our Christmas Jammie Appeal 2023.”
And Julie Griffin, Founder of Glasgow’s Spirit of Christmas commented: “Many thanks to the Burness Paull Foundation and everyone at Burness Paull for their generosity and kindness in supporting Glasgow's Spirit of Christmas this year. These gifts, and other toys we purchase with your Just Giving donations, will soon be on their way to their forever homes.”
Teams across each of our offices also got together to mark Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day, digging out their best festive novelty knits and accessories to support the annual campaign and “make the world better with a sweater”. For each colleague who took part the Burness Paull Foundation made a donation, raising £675.
And the festive fundraising will continue right up until the 23rd December, with Burness Paull helping out at Street Soccer Scotland’s merchandise stand at the Traverse Theatre, where theatregoers are currently enjoying the inspirational new play Same Team – A Street Soccer Story, which was commissioned by the firm and written alongside the women of Dundee’s Change Centre.
These activities bring to an end a busy 12 months for the Foundation, with over £61,000 being distributed to 42 charities throughout the year. This includes 29 sponsorship applications from individual colleagues and teams who fundraised for causes close to their hearts, and a number of firmwide initiatives including responding to the crises in Libya, Turkey and Syria, our annual summer school uniform appeal, and continued support of longstanding charity partner Street Soccer Scotland.
Jackie Robertson, Foundation Manager at Burness Paull said: “It has been fantastic to be able to support so many charities over the past year, with colleagues really getting behind our efforts to help good causes across Scotland and beyond. From annual appeals and activities such as the Red Nose Day, Macmillan Cancer Support Coffee Morning, The Poppy Appeal and Children in Need, to sponsoring the Street Soccer Scotland’s men’s team at the Homeless World Cup in Sacramento and the women’s team in the Nations Cup which took place in Largs, the support has been fantastic. It has been a busy and varied year and I am looking forward to seeing what colleagues and Foundation Trustees come up with for our fundraising efforts in 2024.”