Christmas is a time for giving and Becketts have certainly done that this year. Throughout the year we try and support as many local charities, businesses, schools and sports clubs as we possibly can and here are just some of the great things, we have manged to do in 2019.

Fresh Food

The bakers have been busy baking our classic mince pie for weeks now, and it’s just as well, as we have donated over 500 mince pies alone to local charities, church groups and schools. We have also donated 600 free range eggs to the Birmingham’s Christmas Shelter this week. They are one of the few homeless shelters that are open all over the festive period and have around 120 guests per day. They serve three meals a day and will use the eggs we have donated for everyone’s breakfast.

Throughout the year we have been able to donate lots of our delicious farmhouse cakes to local charities, freshly baked bread to the Nuffield Scholarship Farming Trust including 400 dinner rolls, 30 loaves of bread and 100 French sticks, burgers for Breast Cancer Haven in Solihull who held a sponsored fire walk and BBQ and that is just to name a few.

Hampers and Gift Vouchers

Our usual charity donations are in the form of Restaurant and Farm Shop Gift Vouchers and this year we have donated over £5000 worth of gift vouchers to many worthy charities. On occasions we also donate our luxury hampers. The hampers are filled with luxury gifts and often used as raffle prizes.

Charity Events

Throughout the year as a whole team we try and support larger charities as well. During our Easter event we have our giant Maisie the Cow, who is decorated pink and has fake udders so that the little ones can try out their milking skills. We have a donation bucket attached to her and all of the proceeds collected are doubled by Becketts and donated to Breast Cancer Now. This year we donated £500.

During December we support St Basils which is a young person’s homeless charity. We are a collection point for long life foods and new, unused toiletries. All donations get distributed to the local supported accommodations including Birmingham, Redditch and Solihull.

Annually we hold our Becketts Bake Off which is in line with Macmillan Coffee Morning, staff and customers are encouraged to make a show stopping cake to enter the bake-off competition. These are then judged, and the best cake wins a delicious afternoon tea for two in our Restaurant. This year we raised £424.58.

Many companies get involved in Christmas Jumper Day, and we are one of them. This campaign is so much fun and really gets you in the Christmas spirit. This year we have donated £105.40 to the Save the Children Charity.

Other larger charities 

Our Christmas crackers this year are fully recyclable and contain no plastic at all! We purchased 1500 crackers for the festive period and a donation of 5p per cracker has been donated to Trussell Trust, who are a charity working to stop UK hunger and poverty.

A local resident approached us in November for donations towards their charity Santa’s grotto they were organising for late December. We were able to donate 400 Christmas presents. This equates to £900 worth of toys. All proceeds made at this event will be donated to Teenage Cancer Trust. Keep your eyes peeled on our social feed for the grand total raised.

Towards the end of October into November we welcome volunteers from the British Legion who sell their poppies, staff and customers donate and all proceeds go to the British Legions largest poppy appeal campaign. This year, staff and customers at Becketts collected £406.09 for the charity.

Local sport clubs and Schools

We support many local sports clubs and schools in and around Wythall including Earlswood Football Club and Tidbury Green School. Our donations are sponsorship’s or donations. They support various projects and events that the schools or clubs have going on throughout the year.

Token Scheme

The Becketts Community Fund is new to 2019 and is in place to support local charity projects. Customers in store get given a token and can vote for one of the charities. Every quarter the charities are changed and three new charities are chosen. This year we have donated £133.85 to Wythall Community Choir.  £267.70 to Acorns Children’s Hospice and £267.70 to Hollytrees Animal Sanctuary.

If you would like your charity or community group to be supported by the fund, then please follow this link to apply. Likewise if you are a local charity, business, sport club or school that is holding a fundraising event then please do not hesitate to contact the marketing team at info@beckettsfarm.co.uk and we will always try to help where we can with donations.