Barclays Bank donates £25,000 to Leeds homeless charity
Howard Lake | 4 February 2008 | News
Barclays have donated £25,000 to a social enterprise set up by Leeds-based homeless charity St. George’s Crypt. The CREATE social enterprise will provide Crypt clients with the work experience and training they need to move from dependency to independence.
Gary Hoffman, Barclays Group Vice Chairman, recently visited the project to see how the company’s donation was being used.
MR Hoffman said: “At Barclays our community investment focuses on using our knowledge and expertise to tackle social issues such as improving financial literacy and helping people get back to work and this revolutionary programme, intent on creating opportunities and solutions for the homeless in Leeds, is fantastic.”
The £25,000 donation will help CREATE with start-up costs in setting up an outside catering company offering high quality sandwich platters and buffet services to both corporate and private events throughout Leeds. CREATE will then move into housing, training and retail markets.
Sarah Dunwell of CREATE said: “Barclays have provided us with the means to launch CREATE and get it off the ground with real impact.”
Profits from CREATE will serve to support further expansion of the social enterprise and “a significant proportion” will be donated to St. George’s Crypt.
Barclays says that its community investment programme “added up to £46.5 million in 2006”.
www.stgeorgescrypt.org.uk
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.