The Springboard Charity Bounces into Action with Fantastic March Events
For more than 25 years, The Springboard Charity has been dedicated to helping young, unemployed and disadvantaged people achieve their full potential, by supporting and equipping them with the skills, knowledge and confidence they need to take that crucial first step, or step back, into employment. Their focus is on the hospitality, leisure and tourism sector, and Bunzl Catering and Hospitality Division and Lockhart Catering are proud to be supporters of The Springboard Charity and the opportunities and mentorship they provide within this exciting industry.
This March, The Springboard Charity is looking forward to a number of major events that will not only highlight the important work that they do, but help to raise crucial funds so that they can continue to do so. In fact, before March even arrived The Springboard Charity was setting the pace for its upcoming events as the chosen charity for the Hotelympia 10k, which took place on the 28th February at London ExCel, the day before the official opening of Hotelympia 2016.
Over 270 Hotelympia attendees took part this year, and Team Bunzl were there of course; we're proud to say that we finished the run as the second fastest team, but even more impressively our Direct Marketing Manager Hiramoni Sarma took first place as the fastest in the Over 35 category!
And that wasn’t the only celebration of The Springboard Charity at Hotelympia, as The Big Event, Hotelympia’s Gala Dinner, took place on Tuesday 1st March (with a St. David's Day theme, no less) to honour the work that the charity does and of course, raise money for the cause. Working behind the scenes to provide the delicious dishes were FutureChef Alumni, led by Executive Head Chef James Buckley. Together with the Hotelympia 10k, over £70,000 was raised for The Springboard Charity through these events at Hotelympia 2016 - thank you to everyone who took part!
#thebigevent @SBUK_Events great event, great cause pic.twitter.com/MTqaGRZMWS
— Bunzl Lockhart (@BunzlLockhart) 1 March 2016
March is set to continue to be this exciting for The Springboard Charity, so let’s take a look at the events we’re most looking forward to this month.Peru Five Day TrekThe Springboard Charity is focused on helping young people in the UK to achieve their full potential, but they also look for important opportunities to improve the lives of those who are a little further away too. On 11th March, a group of brave supporters of the charity will begin a challenging five day long trek to one of Peru’s most remote regions, followed by a community project in a local school to bring them sustainable energy through installing solar panels, and teaching the children computer skills and English lessons.
From 11th-22nd March 2016, a group of Springboard supporters will travel to Peru. They will embark on a gruelling 5 day trek which will be followed by a community project to bring sustainable energy to a remote Peruvian school. The trekkers will help to make a difference to people’s lives, as the funds raised will improve young people’s prospects. Our last trek to Little Tibet raised over £125,000 and allowed us to help 75 young people overcome their challenges and find life changing employment in hospitality. We want more of the same! #springboard #perutrek #travel #hospitality #volunteeringA photo posted by The Springboard Charity (@thespringboardcharity) on
Among the trekkers that are looking forward to this fantastic and worthwhile trip is Sophie Green, Programmes Manager for Springboard UK, who has already raised over £3000 for the charity and is hoping that she’ll have smashed £4000 by the time she departs. Sophie shared her excitement for the Peru trek with us and her reasons for taking part in this gruelling challenge:
“Having worked in the world of hospitality for over 10 years and still loving every minute of it, I want to do the trek to give back to those that need it most. I’m very excited for the real ‘explorer’ experience, with the added bonus of helping the local Peruvians. “By going on this trek I will be challenging myself physically with the walk as I have never done anything like this before. I cannot wait to see what our help means to the Peruvians that we will be helping and to explore one of the 7 Wonders, an extraordinary and life changing trip! I am also secretly looking forward to trying guinea pig, oh and the Pisco sours!”
As well as providing help to local Peruvians, the trek will also help to raise money for those in the UK too. Previously The Springboard Charity embarked on a trek to Little Tibet, which raised over £125,000, enabling them to help more than 75 young people to find life-changing employment in hospitality. FutureChef Final The annual FutureChef competition run by The Springboard Charity is a nationwide culinary initiative for young people ages between 12 and 16, giving them the opportunity to learn to cook, explore and develop a passion for food, and nuture an essential life skill that they can forge into a career too. As well as learning culinary skills, young people can discover the provenance of food, be educated in health and safety and food hygiene, and also find out the many routes they can take into making a career out of cooking.
As its name suggests, the aim of FutureChef is to encourage the next generation of talented young chefs. A major part of the initiative is its four stage national competition, in which one budding chef is named the FutureChef winner – among the previous winners of the FutureChef title is Ruth Hansom, who performed cookery demonstrations at Lockhart’s The Show event at Old Trafford last year, and went on to land an apprenticeship at The Ritz. You can read our exclusive interview with her here.
Ruth Hansom is now working at the Ritz thanks to @SBFutureChef #TheBigEvent pic.twitter.com/YZT9TKTQ2D — Springboard Events (@SBUK_Events) 1 March 2016
The FutureChef 2016 Final will be taking place at Westminster Kingsway College in London on 14th March, and will see the final 12 students, from more than 8000 entrants in this year’s competition, battle it out to impress a panel of judges that includes TV chef Brian Turner. We’ll be covering the Springboard FutureChef Final here on the Lockhart blog so check back to find out who scooped the title, as they could soon become a household name. Until then be sure to follow the FutureChef event on Twitter at @SBFutureChef or by following the hashtag #FutureChef. Good luck to all the entrants of FutureChef, and of course to all of the trekkers heading to Peru too!
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