Minster Law provide ‘FareShare’ of furniture for UK’s largest food waste charity

Following the recent relocation of its head office, a leading Yorkshire-based personal injury specialist has donated its surplus office furniture to a number of charities and schools in the region.

Minster Law, which transitioned from its previous head office in York to Wakefield in July, donated 153 chairs, 55 storage units, 22 tables and 62 desks to a number of Yorkshire charities including FareShare Yorkshire and the Wakefield Hospice as part of the move.

Minster Law leads the way when it comes to supporting its local communities and proactively encourages all its employees to take part in fundraising and charity initiatives wherever they can. In fact, over the past 12 months, Minster Law employees have completed 264 days of voluntary work for local causes and recently helped to raise over £1,600 through various fundraising activities, including hosting coffee mornings and bake sales as well as a sponsored cycleathon and fundraising raffles. In addition, in the past year Minster Law has donated £27,757.04 directly to worthy causes, sponsors Wakefield Theatre’s ‘Passport to Theatre’ programme, Wetwheels Yorkshire’s ‘Royal Week’ and Wakefield Hospice’s ‘Lights on the Lake’.

As well as donating the office furniture, Minster Law also held an auction for some of the higher value surplus items from its York location including TVs and artworks. So far £822 has been raised, which will be donated to York Against Cancer. On top of this, 30 laptops have been donated to local schools in need and £200 has been raised for Byte Night, a charity working to prevent youth homelessness.

Amanda Newton, Chair of the Make a Difference committee said: “Giving back to our local communities is really important to us so when we identified we would have an opportunity to help local charities and schools with furniture donations, the Make a Difference committee were keen to help.  We contacted charities we had worked with previously and also encouraged our colleagues to recommend schools to us so the furniture we no longer needed would go to good use.  I’m thrilled by the success of the project and am really pleased we were able to help so many good causes.”

FareShare Chief Executive, Gareth Batty said: “Employees of Minster Law regularly help us to provide quality surplus food to frontline organisations in Leeds and Barnsley. Their generous offer of furniture came at the perfect time, as we are relocating this summer to a larger Leeds-based warehouse to enable us to support more people; however furnishing our two sites was going to be a big challenge.

“That’s where Minster Law stepped in. The desks, tables, chairs and cabinets for our hardworking staff and volunteers exceeded 100 pieces of high-quality equipment that will benefit our two warehouses for many years. As a charity we could never have acquired this amount of vital equipment without Minster Law’s support – we’re overwhelmed at the donation and excited for all the extra work it will enable us to do, as we take more surplus food and redistribute it to 190 organisations and counting.”

Clare Kemsley of Wakefield Hospice, who also received a donation of office furniture added: “The chairs and storage units from Minster Law have been gratefully received by colleagues across the hospice, from fundraising and admin to our family care team and the ward office. The donated items are already being put to good use, helping to ensure that our team of volunteers and staff can work comfortably, safely and efficiently!”

To find out more about Minster Law’s charity and fundraising initiatives, please visit www.minsterlaw.co.uk/csr.