Beanstalk is McCarthy Stone’s official charity partner for 2019
Charity support is a key part of our vision here at McCarthy Stone, and we are proud to announce our partnership with Beanstalk in 2019. Here we take a closer look at Beanstalk, what we’re looking to achieve with this partnership and we recap the official event launch that was held back in January.
Who Is Beanstalk?
Beanstalk is a UK-wide children’s literacy charity that was established over 45 years ago. They provide one-to-one support to children from disadvantaged backgrounds who struggle with reading. They follow the core values of ‘reading, growing, thriving’, and as well as supporting the nation’s children, they promote the benefits of intergenerational volunteering.
To give you a clearer view of the amazing work they do, last year they provided training and ongoing support to more than 3,700 volunteers who, in turn, offered impactful reading support to over 13,000 children.
What Are The Aims Of The Partnership?
The main aim of our partnership is to raise at least £100,000 this year to support Beanstalk’s reading programmes. We are also looking to encourage our homeowners and staff to volunteer and support the disadvantaged children in their local area.
Beyond this, the wider aims include:
- To supersede the initial £100,000 target and match the £260,000 achieved by the 2017 RVS partnership.
- To help approximately 1,000 children learn how to read with one-to-one reading support from fully trained volunteers.
- To support a further 300 children with ‘Story Reader Days’.
- To enhance McCarthy Stone’s brand within local communities with this new vision and purpose.
- To ensure McCarthy Stone becomes a pledge member of the ‘Vision for Literacy Business Pledge’. This is a UK-wide group of charities, educational organisations and businesses that are dedicated to improving UK reading levels.
The Charity Launch Recapped
On Wednesday the 30th of January, our partnership was officially launched at Poole Primary School, Islington. The guest of honour was Channel 4 broadcaster and Beanstalk supporter Jon Snow, who offered his thoughts on the importance of the charity and partnership when he explained to the school children and attendees:
‘Even though I didn’t achieve good exam results at school, it was reading that got me through, and it’s so important that we are all able to read as it’s the most important thing in your whole life, if you can read well, you’ll go a long way.
This is a wonderful partnership and a fantastic opportunity to raise lots of money for this incredible charity. I wish you all the greatest of success.’
To hear more about this, you can take a look at this interview we held with Jon at the event in this video here.
‘A Really Magical And Unique Experience’
Another notable attendee was Beanstalk CEO Ginny Lunn, who again highlighted the importance of the volunteering work and literacy programmes McCarthy Stone are now supporting. Ginny explained how:
‘Volunteering opportunities which embrace intergenerational interaction can bring an incredible amount of joy and value to local communities, which is why this partnership is such an exciting one and will help forge links between Beanstalk volunteer roles and more local communities.
A large proportion of our volunteers join us after retiring and having this opportunity to go ‘back to school’, acquire new skills and become part of the school community again can be a really magical and unique experience, so we are really looking forward to working together in 2019.’
You can hear more from Ginny about how the partnership with McCarthy Stone came about in an additional interview we held, in this video.
The event was also attended by Andrew Wickett, our Regional Managing Director, Pete Jordan, Management Services Regional Manager and Mark Riddington, Management Services Managing Director, who said a few words on behalf of McCarthy Stone:
‘It was a great morning and lovely to meet Jon Snow as well as some of the school children, who clearly enjoy reading - as well as enjoying some of the cakes that were there!’
If you’d like to find out any more about this year’s charity partnership then you can visit this official page on the Beanstalk site which can tell you everything you need to know.
