Jonathan’s blog – Using my volunteer days to make a difference

At RECCo, we encourage all our employees to take two paid volunteer days per year to support a charity or community group. Recently, Johnathan Hawkins, our Interim Director of Operations Programmes, utilized one of his company volunteer days to participate in a great initiative at his local Sixth Form College. Jonathan documented his experience volunteering to motivate others to get involved. You can read about his experience and learn more in the blog post below:

My volunteer day hosting money workshops for local Sixth Form

“I recently used one of my volunteer days to support the local youth centre in delivering money workshops for the Year 12 pupils (aged 16-17) in our local Sixth Form College.

I volunteer at the local youth centre in my town, Young People Count, 2-3 nights a week to support the charity’s operation. This can involve running activities or workshops, playing games, cooking, supporting governance for the trustees and youth board, or being available to talk to the young people.

Over the last month, we have been running money workshops for 15-18-year-olds to prepare them for life leaving school/college and moving into the working world or university. On Thursday, 8th November, we worked with the local Sixth Form to deliver these workshops to their Year 12 pupils as part of their school ‘Enrichment Day’.

We received three groups of 18 students throughout the day (54 total). We took them through a workshop to gain an understanding of student income, accommodation, bills and expenses, shopping and lifestyle. The goal was to work in teams to create a bespoke budget to manage their chosen lifestyle, with the winning team of each section receiving a voucher for the local ice cream parlour. As part of the workshop, we created a make-shift Aldi shop for them where they had to first guess the prices of each item and then complete a shop for the week using their shopping budget. It was a great day with lots of engagement and interest from most young people.

Following the money workshop, each group moved on to making smoothies and mocktails before heading back to school.”

Charitable giving at RECCo

At RECCo, our benefits are unrivalled, covering financial support, health, wellbeing, work-life balance, development and charitable giving. As well as two paid volunteering days, employees can also give back to their chosen charity through salary sacrifice. This form of giving is tax efficient, as employees can donate straight from their wages before tax is deducted from their income.

You can find out more about our other employee benefits here.