CSV Action Earth environmental volunteering campaign: March 1 2008 – July 31 2008.
Supermarket giant Morrisons is giving away cash grants to help the local environment as part of the CSV Action Earth volunteering campaign. Morrisons have agreed to provide £50 grants to 900 voluntary groups across the country to help kick start community environmental projects.
This is the second year that Morrisons has supported the national environmental volunteering campaign run by CSV, the UK’s largest volunteering charity. Last year over 15,500 people took part in 900 CSV Action Earth projects in the UK giving over 300,000 volunteering hours while planting more than 4,000 trees, collecting nearly 7,000 sacks of litter, cleaning nearly 7,000 metres of river bed and overall improving nearly 2,000 acres of land.
Gillian Hall, Customer Services Director at Morrisons says: “We are pleased that the sponsorship we have given CSV is going to help kick-start many excellent community environmental projects. More than one in ten volunteers choose to give time to help the environment. We think CSV Action Earth offers an opportunity to support big ideas by local people keen to make changes for the better where they live.”
Mike Williams, Director of CSV Environment says: "Helping the environment can seem like a monumental task, but volunteering in your local community, whether collecting dumped plastic for recycling, planting trees or clearing up a grotty area is something we can all do. We believe that local people themselves are best placed to decide what needs doing in their area and thanks to Morrisons’ grants they can now do something about it."
Volunteering is not only good for the environment but is good for your health as well. Independent research commissioned by Action Earth’s sister campaign, CSV Make a Difference Day shows that 42% of volunteers in environmental and conservation projects believe it helps them lose weight while 61% say volunteering helps combat stress. (1)
To register a project and apply for a grant or get more information on CSV Action Earth, call CSV on Tel: 0121 328 7455 or visit www.csv.org.uk/actionearth.
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For further press information:
CSV Press Office: Paul Donohoe 020 7812 0337 / 07779 624 385 / pdonohoe@csv.org.uk or Jason Tanner 020 7812 0038 / jtanner@csv.org.uk
Morrisons Press Office: Harriet Rodgers, Stores PR Manager, 0845 611 5363, harrietrodgers@morrisonsplc.co.uk
Notes for Editors
1. CSV Make a Difference Day and Barclays Research - 2004
2. CSV (Community Service Volunteers) creates opportunities for people to take an active part in the life of their communities through volunteering, training and community action. In 2006/7 229,869 people gave time as volunteers through CSV. CSV trained 12,309 people of all ages and linked 29,000 people to learning through BBC Local Radio. www.csv.org.uk
3. About Morrisons: Freshness, Service and Value: We are the UK’s fourth largest food retailer with 376 stores. Our business is mainly food and grocery – the weekly shop. Uniquely we source and process most of the fresh food that we sell though our own manufacturing facilities, giving us close control over provenance and quality; and we have more people preparing more food in store than any other retailer. Every week nine million customers pass through our doors and 114,000 colleagues across the business work hard each day to deliver great service to them. With competitive prices and hundreds of special offers, we are proud to save our customers money every day.
4. To receive a £50 grant, which covers expenses including materials, projects must: improve the local environment, involve volunteers, or meet a local community need. Examples of projects completed by volunteers last year include: Planting up a wildlife area in a local school, erecting bird/bat/hedgehog boxes in a nearby wood, cleaning up a local beach and clearing and signing local footpaths. To register a project and apply for a grant or get more information on CSV Action Earth, call CSV on Tel: 0121 328 7455 or visit www.csv.org.uk/actionearth.