Earlier this month, we received a letter that made everyone here at Kluman & Balter incredibly proud.
Matt Downie, Chief Executive of Crisis – the UK’s national charity dedicated to helping the homeless – wrote to thank us for our part in this winter’s Crisis at Christmas campaign. Our donation of baking ingredients helped the charity provide meals and desserts to over 6,000 people at centres across Britain.
For the second year running, our team delivered high-quality baking ingredients to the Crisis warehouse in East London. From there, those ingredients were turned into meals and desserts served at drop-in centres, day centres and hotels over the Christmas period.
Crisis at Christmas is the charity’s flagship winter campaign, providing accommodation, hot food and specialist support to people who would otherwise be sleeping rough. This year, Crisis also launched its first women-led service in London, offering female guests a safe environment with access to mental and physical health support.
The ingredient donations are only part of how our team gets involved. At our Waltham Abbey site, we run an annual charity cake sale to raise extra funds for Crisis. Cakes are baked and donated by K&B employees and our innovations team. We open up the canteen for hot drinks and as much cake as people can eat, and we invite the businesses alongside us on the industrial estate to join in too.
It’s become one of those days the whole team looks forward to. There’s a real buzz about it.
With homelessness rising across the country, the work Crisis does matters more than ever. We’ve already confirmed we’ll be supporting Crisis at Christmas again later this year.
Lawrence Watson, our Managing Director, said:
“To receive this letter from Matt and the team at Crisis means a great deal to everyone here. As a business built on baking, we know how much a good meal can lift someone’s spirits. Supporting Crisis at Christmas is something our whole team gets behind and we’re already looking forward to doing it all again later this year.”
Giving back is part of who we are at Kluman & Balter. If you’d like to find out more about Crisis and how you can support their work, visit www.crisis.org.uk.