The idea was to ‘adopt’ a charity who we, as a company, believed in and could focus all of our fundraising efforts entirely on that one charity. “This was an idea that came from Limagrain’s own employees who felt that it would be great to ‘give something back to the farming industry, on which we rely for our business’” says, Rob Cowling, Limagrain UK’s Director of Finance. “We deal with farmers every day, through our Nickerson retail team of Seed Specialists, our contract seed growers, and indirectly through our wholesale channels, and we can all clearly see the challenges that farmers are facing in these difficult and uncertain times” adds Laura Davey, Limagrain UK’s Marketing Manager.
R.A.B.I offer financial support to farming people in hardship of all ages, treating every application for support on its own merits, working with compassion and discretion, “so amongst all the incredibly worthy charities out there, R.A.B.I seemed like the perfect fit for us to ‘give back’” says Laura.
We’ve run a series of organised fundraising events throughout the year, from Cream Tea events, to Bacon Butty Lunches, Sponsored Walks and Welly Wanging for #WellyWeek . “The majority of our events have been centred around wider agricultural events such as British Beef Week and British Breakfast Week, so that we could maximise the exposure for R.A.B.I and spread the word about the great work they do, as well as supporting British agriculture”, Laura says.
Our most recent events however, were Christmas Jumper Day and simply a ‘good old-fashioned’ Christmas raffle with all proceeds going to the charity. Limagrain staff along with friends and family, managed to raise an impressive £651.
Throughout the year , we’ve raised a grand total of £3,193.12 against a target of £3,000! We’re so pleased that we’ve smashed our personal target for the year. To help make this possible, “Limagrain UK kindly offered to match any monies raised, doubling our donations to R.A.B.I. meaning we can give even more back, so with this extra funding, our Christmas raffle raised over £1,300.” adds Rob Cowling.
We plan to continue supporting R.A.B.I in 2018 with a new series of events, so watch this space!
To learn more about The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institute (R.A.B.I) contact:
R.A.B.I
Shaw House
27 West Way
Oxford
OX2 0QH
Tel: 01865 724 931
Email: info@rabi.org.uk