Amazon delivers £6,500 donation to Sunderland's Box Youth and Community Project

To celebrate the opening of the firm’s new Gateshead fulfilment centre, employees were invited to choose a good cause to support and opted for The Box Youth and Community Project.

The project offers educational and recreational activity programmes and volunteering projects for children, young people and adults with learning difficulties and disabilities.

Programmes are run at the charity’s centre in Hall Farm where young people aged 12-19 can meet three evenings per week. The centre is a safe space for young people to meet up with friends, listen to music, have a chat with youth workers and get involved in various organised activities such as fitness and cookery.

The centre also organises volunteer opportunities for young people, including projects such as The Community Pantry Project, which provides recipe cards and ingredient packs for families to encourage them to make nutritious meals at home, and Dinner 2 Door, a volunteer-led delivery service of groceries and hot meals for the elderly and vulnerable.

The donation from Amazon Gateshead will go towards expanding the lunch delivery service for elderly and disabled residents and The Community Pantry Project.

To celebrate the donation, members of the Amazon team were invited to join the charity’s weekly community lunch held at the centre to learn more about the work the charity does and meet some of the volunteers.

Richard Thompson, General Manager at Amazon in Gateshead, said: “To mark the opening of our new fulfilment centre in Gateshead, we are supporting a number of charities that are important to our employees and it’s great to provide this donation to the team at the Box Youth and Community Project in Sunderland.

"We want to wish The Box Youth and Community project the best of luck with the expansion of both the lunch delivery service and The Community Pantry Project, and we’re glad we could lend a helping hand.”

John Bainbridge, who works as a Stower and Associate Forum Member at the new base and attended the charity visit, said: “I’m pleased to be part of supporting The Box Youth and Community Project.

"The project is great for not only the young people who use the centre, but also the more vulnerable members of the community who the project supports.”

Box Youth and Community Project manager Denise Barna said te donation would be a major boost: “We work with children and young people to get them involved in their community, shaping them into well-rounded adults,” she said.

"We rely on donations to continue our work, so thank you to Richard and the team at Amazon in Gateshead for this support.”

The donation to The Box Youth and Community Project was made as part of Amazon’s programme to support the communities in and around its operating locations across the UK.

Amazon is providing disadvantaged students with online STEM courses as well as teaming up with charity partner Magic Breakfast and delivering more than five million healthy breakfasts to families in England.

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