Marks & Spencer benefiting the community
NEWS
One of Northwich’s major national retailers have benefited a school in the local area after working with them as part of a community development project.
Marks and Spencer (M&S) at Barons Quay, have worked with Victoria Road Primary School as part of their ‘Make every moment special in the community’ (MEMSITC) initiative and have helped deliver a number of improvements at the school.
The ethos of MEMSITC is to transform and enhance lives and after selecting Victoria Road as one of their partners, M&S began working on a number of initiatives which would bring lasting benefits to the school.
Not only do they provide the school with food and sundries for their breakfast and after school clubs but they have also given spare items of clothing on top of other support.
As well as this, M&S has worked closely with Victoria Road to upgrade their playing field and wooded area which is across the road from the school. Work on the playing field is to be continued at the next stage of the project.
The space was overgrown, unsafe and had insufficient seating for taking a full class, leaving M&S with a brief of clearing the wooded area of unsafe trees, cleaning existing seating, providing additional seating with a covered area for studying and also potentially cleaning up the pond to facilitate pond dipping.
Julia Weightman, Clothing and Home Section Manager at Northwich M&S, was heavily involved in the project and explained which jobs they carried out after three months’ worth of planning.
“We removed dead trees, cut back overhanging foliage, jet washed benches, picnic tables and the pond area while also providing four new picnic tables. The team removed an unsafe raised flower bed before building a new one too.
“Following this we prepared a half raised bed for children to grow fruit and vegetables and planted the other half with flowers which will add an exciting dimension to the children’s outdoor activities.”
Julia also explained how the store carried out fundraising activities to help facilitate extra improvements at the school and has hinted that other initiatives are in the pipeline.
“We raised funds in the store by conducting a variety of events in the staff area and by staff giving up their own time to bag pack on foods for a charitable donation. This enabled us to supply materials and complete a lot of additional tasks.
“This is only the start for our partnership though and we have plenty of other plans to continue to work with the school to enhance it even further.”
Northwich BID Officer Mark Henshaw is delighted with how the partnership has turned out and has praised M&S.
“It’s great to see a major national retailer giving something back to the community and making a real difference to the day to day experience those children will now receive at school.
“I can’t wait to hear about the future initiatives that M&S have for Victoria Road Primary School and I’m sure the kids will be looking forward to the new projects too.”
Later this month, M&S Northwich will be undergoing an extensive re-brand to provide the best possible customer experience and install the company’s latest branding.
Content supplied by Visit Northwich.