"Last year 1,426 clients received individual advice and support at the Day Centre"

Action Day at West London Day Centre

In the category of: News.
Date posted: Tuesday 05 Jul 2011

Transformation at the Day Centre

In June the West London Day Centre was delighted to host a visit from staff from the international law firm Olswang LLP who came to help redecorate the day centre.

Olswang take their commitment to corporate social responsibility very seriously, justifiably taking pride in seeing themselves as a responsible business, concerned to make a positive contribution to the community and to the environment.  On 16 June 2011 twenty volunteers left their plush head office in Holborn, donned overalls and took up paintbrushes for the day at the West London Day Centre.

This was the second Action Day at the West London Mission instituted by the new Director Jon Kuhrt.  Action Days bring together service users, staff, volunteers, corporate partners and committee members from across the Missions’ various projects.  The June action day was sponsored by Olswang who not only sent a team of volunteers to help but also paid for the materials and the croissants for breakfast.

Although it was less than a year since the day centre’s previous make over the project is so heavily used that it was already looking very shabby.  Over 100 street homeless people use the services every day and so despite the best efforts of the centre’s cleaning staff it needs regular repaints.

Under the direction of Gary Robb, the new Business Support Manager at the West London Mission, teams of volunteers worked simultaneously throughout the day on cleaning and repainting the day room, the staircases, the showers, the meeting rooms and the interview rooms.

Unfortunately the canteen was out of action as that was also being renovated but lunch was very generously provided by Pret A Manger, supplemented with extra crisps courtesy of Abbot Mead Vickers.

By the end of the afternoon the centre was transformed. A clean bright freshly painted environment can have a massive effect on the atmosphere of a place and the improvement in the day centre was immediately noticed by both staff and service users.

Our friends from Olswang reported the following day – “We just wanted to say a massive thank you for organising such a great day for everyone yesterday. Feedback has been resoundingly brilliant - everyone really enjoyed themselves, thought everything was very well organised but most importantly appreciated feeling like they were doing something worthwhile. They particularly enjoyed working alongside the centre's clients.  Everyone has said that they would like to come back and help again!”

Posted by: Admin on Tuesday 05 Jul 2011

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