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Over £31,000

Fundraising by Corporate Partners for their 2009 Charity of the Year, the Alzheimer’s Society


£195,000

Fundraising by John Lewis Partners for their 2009 Charity of the Year, Contact the Elderly


59

Number of Partners who volunteered 21,399 hours through the GJT in 2009/10 (see page 23)


(Diagram: WAITROSE COMMUNITY MATTERS, NUMBER Of DONATIONS 2009/10)


MORE INFORMATION

In this report:

Responsible development
Nutrition

On www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk:

John Spedan Lewis Foundation
The John Spedan Lewis Trust for the Advancement of the Natural Sciences

On the web:

Waitrose Education


PARTNER-LED ACTIVITIES

Our community programmes offer opportunities for our Partners to develop skills and enable us to mobilise customers and suppliers behind good causes.

John Lewis

John Lewis’ 2010 Charity of the Year is Beating Bowel Cancer. The partnership began in February 2010, and the division’s charity week saw a flurry of activity in aid of the cause that featured everything from abseiling to fashion shows to leg-waxing. Throughout the year, the charity – selected by Partners – will also benefit from John Lewis’ mobile phone recycling scheme, which generates a donation for every phone received.

A survey in January 2010 to find out about John Lewis Partners’ knowledge of bowel cancer discovered that levels of awareness were comparable with those of the general public, but it is hoped that by the end of the year, Partners will have greater awareness of bowel cancer and its symptoms. Kate Green, Manager, Corporate Affairs, who oversees the John Lewis relationship with the charity, says, “It is a charity where we can make a difference by getting people to talk about the illness and therefore be more aware – it is the most easily treated form of cancer if caught early enough.”

Waitrose

Waitrose’s Community Investment Committee drives and co-ordinates activity to ensure the division plays its part in achieving the Partnership’s commitments and targets. For example, Waitrose’s Community Matters scheme donated over £2.5 million in 2009/10 and helped more than 8,000 worthy causes. Using tokens handed out at the till, customers at each shop decide how much of a £1,000 monthly total (£500 in convenience shops) is given to each of the three charities or community groups, nominated by customers and selected by Partners. Good causes in other communities will benefit from at least 22 new shops scheduled to open during 2010. Our head office, Leckford Estate and Distribution Centres also make similar monthly contributions.

The Waitrose Community Investment Committee also considers one-off donations to local organisations and supports Partners and retired Partners involved in volunteering. For example, in 2009/10, the committee sponsored the development of a new food technology room at a school in Marlborough where many of our local shop Partners were educated.

Initiated by the exclusive licensing of Duchy Originals to Waitrose, the division donated £250,000 to support the work of the Prince’s Charities Foundation, a group of 20 non-profit organisations. The partnership will grow in 2010 with the product range increasing from 200 to 500 Duchy Originals lines and will see Waitrose donating a minimum of £1.5 million.

Sharing our passion for good food

Waitrose operates and supports a number of initiatives to encourage and support children and young people to eat well and learn where their food comes from. Its sponsorship of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Campaign for School Gardening encourages schools to set up their own garden and teach pupils about gardening and growing fruit and vegetables. The campaign aims to have 80% of the UK’s 21,500 primary schools participating by the end of 2012 and over 10,000 schools have already signed up. Waitrose has also enabled 11,904 children to attend free workshops at our Demonstration Studios in Salisbury, Southend and Cheltenham as part of our Waitrose Education initiative.