First 6 Months as Tesco Dedworth Community Champion

I became Community Champion at the end of October 2022. I’m really enjoying the role of Community Champion at Tesco Dedworth and thought it worth putting a blog together about some of the things we have facilitated in the last 6 months…

Please contact me on tescodedworthcc@gmail.com or phone / text 07717 820823.

We were straight into the Royal British Legion Poppy Day, facilitating a collection in the foyer enabling the RBL to raise over £3,000.

Tesco Dedworth does an amazing job of giving to those in need, all year round, in the local community through FoodShare and the Community Fridge, which has the additional benefit of ensuring we minimise products going to waste.

In early December we focused on these collections in store for a few days, generating a record level of donations as a direct result of negotiations with Fareshare, ensuring all collections went direct to Windsor FoodShare.

Next up it was Christmas which enabled the store to facilitate the foyer area for many of the local community organisations, maximising awareness for their work in the community. Over a dozen organisations benefited and we were lucky to be entertained by a choir on 21st Dec. Local children did an amazing job of creating artwork which was displayed in store windows, giving us a real Christmas vibe. Thank you.

Tesco Dedworth Windows thanks to Homer & Oakfield First Schools

During December we also collected hundreds of Christmas Gifts for children, kindly donated by our customers. Careful to ensure they were distributed fairly, we gave all the items to Baby Bank who look after families with children of all ages, who facilitated the gift giving, ensuring the children got age appropriate gifts.

Logically, after Xmas, there are many unwanted Christmas Gifts and we collected those up in January, handing them to The Green Room who are raffling them off through their student business programme and using the monies raised to seed fund students business ideas.

Swan Elder shares his meanderings along the river bank to inspire green shoots of enterprise

During January we hosted 4 Community Champion Coffee Mornings in store and this has led to many connections being made by those involved in community work and new projects taking shape. These have continued monthly at The Windsor Family Hub.

Community Leaders Coffee Morning Successful Launch

One idea saw us collecting “Books for Schools” from February through to the end of March, collecting hundreds of books, saving thousands of pounds for local schools.