ITC Giving Back: A Round-up Of Our Charitable Activity in 2019
9th January 2020
When it comes to supporting good causes, the whole ITC team can always be relied upon to get involved! 2019 was another great year for our charity fundraising efforts, and we couldn’t be prouder of everyone’s enthusiastic participation and generous donations.
Steps to Success
In June, with temperatures soaring above 27 degrees Celsius, 16 energetic ITC team members undertook a sponsored 6-7 mile walk in the Surrey Hills, raising £1,650 for both the British Heart Foundation (a charity linked to our much-missed colleague and friend, Owen Wellman) and the Ryan MS Therapy Centre, our company charity of the year.
Getting Muddy for Money
Then, in September, a group of brave colleagues from across the industry, including Tony Smith, Tony Corbet, Dan Staff and Becky Cheney from ITC, tackled the Paragon Mudathon – racing through 5km of challenging mud pools and obstacles to raise money for the charities Land Aid and Born Too Soon. In total, the 615 property industry professionals who participated raised a whopping £16,000.
Charity at Christmas
Christmas time saw two special fundraising events, both of which were in aid of the Ryan MS Therapy Centre. First, we took part in the therapy centre’s silent auction of an M&S Beauty Advent Calendar, which raised £100 and was won by George Spencer. Next came the annual ITC ‘Elf Photo’ competition, which saw entries of an even higher standard than ever before. The winning shot of the elf came from Grant Searson, who received a Christmas hamper as a prize for his ingenious shot of the elf on an ITC van.
One Project, One Tree
Additionally, throughout the year we’ve kept up our company tradition of dedicating Woodland Trust trees to our clients to mark project completions, as well as presenting new ITC team members with either a real tree or a Woodland Trust tree dedication in their name, subject to their preference. Since we started this One Project, One Tree scheme in 2011, we have dedicated over 170 trees via The Woodland Trust, and presented over 150 trees to new ITC team members.
ITC’s Company Charity
2019 also marked the final year of our rewarding 5-year partnership with the Ryan MS Therapy Centre (formally the Sutton and Croydon MS Therapy Centre), who do tremendous work in supporting people with MS in Surrey and the South London area, offering a varied range of therapies and activities, as well as the support that comes from being part of a centre community.
Over the past half-decade we have assisted with various maintenance repairs to their building, we have helped financially and technically (in association with Appleby Architects Ltd) with the creation and submission of plans for a hyperbaric oxygen chamber (which is now being incorporated into plans for an extension to the centre), and we had raised over £10,000 at the point we said our farewell to the team at the therapy centre (see photo above).
However, with the addition of our recent Christmas card money donation, we are proud to announce that our total financial support comes to well over £12,000.
We’ve been honoured to support this deserving charity, and we wish them every success for their future growth.
We will soon be announcing a new staff-nominated charity which ITC will be supporting over the coming years, so watch this space for updates.