M&S customers and employees came together to donate more than 160 hours of their time to Spark Something Good in Leeds and Bradford. Members of the community rolled up their sleeves and volunteered at a range of local projects to improve community spaces. Spark Something Good was launched by M&S last summer in London and will see 24 projects take place across 24 cities in the UK and Ireland over the course of 24 months.
Some of the local organisations in Leeds and Bradford that have benefitted from Spark Something Good include Simon Marks Court Care Home, Seacroft Grange Primary School, Bradford Forster Square and InnChurches.
In Leeds, M&S returned to Simon Marks Court, a care home specialising in dementia care, 28 years after it made a £1m donation in 1988 to mark 100 years since the birth of Simon Marks, son of M&S founder Michael Marks. The team of volunteers transformed a disused lounge into a café area and created a relaxation room for residents. A celebration afternoon tea took place in the afternoon for volunteers, residents and their friends and families. Volunteers at Seacroft Grange Primary School transformed an outbuilding into a positive learning environment called Gateway to Gold by laying a new floor, redecorating the rooms, adding in new furniture and creating new garden areas close to the school. The team were helped out by donations from Regional Paints, Davidson’s Flooring, Woodend Nurseries, Linton Nursery and Langland Garden Centre. Employees from M&S Leeds and M&S Moortown donated their time to get these projects off the ground with the help of local residents.
Mark Robson, Plan A Champion at M&S in Yorkshire, said: “Spark Something Good has been a real success across Leeds and Bradford and it’s been a great experience for all our employees in Yorkshire to spend some time getting to know some of the groups and organisations that provide so much support to locals in our communities.
“Getting stuck in and helping others can make a profound difference to the services so I’d like to thank every single person that has got involved and donated their time to helping out their local community.”
