Housing association hosts community project week

Jet-washing patios, planting an abundance of plants and dishing up slices of cake, were jobs on the menu for over 60 colleagues from East Midlands housing association Futures Housing Group, as they swapped their usual day jobs for community projects.

The five projects were spread across Derbyshire and Northamptonshire in a jam-packed week dedicated to giving back to local communities. Customers and their neighbours popped along for a chat, free hot drinks and sweet treats in ‘cuppa and cake’ mornings at sites including Heanor and Heage, as well as seeing the transformation of gardens at the local community centres in the latter two locations.

'Futures in the Community' first started as a single day in December 2022, where all employees left their desks behind to help give back to the neighbourhoods where its customers live. This time around volunteers from teams all over the business, including customer services, ICT, assets and finance swapped their usual jobs of crunching numbers and taking phone calls, to cleaning furniture and tending to plants.

A Ripley based materials merchant donated various items to help with the different projects.

Kate Curley, National Social Housing Account Manager at the company said: “Working together with our customers to improve the local communities and provide sustainable improvements to the area is an invaluable part of my job. It's a pleasure to be part of these important community projects that bring so much more than just a physical change to the area.

“I hope the residents enjoy the improved green space that me, Travis Perkins Ripley and Futures have worked together to create.”

Sophie Harding, Community Engagement Project Delivery Officer at Futures said: "It really was a brilliant week. It took a lot of planning and support from multiple teams to figure out what we could do to make a difference to our customers and communities, but the feedback we've had so far has been great.

"Colleagues were building planters, jet-washing, cleaning, digging and planting to create gardens for the community to look after, and just as importantly, chatting to customers in person. I’d like to thank all colleagues, customers, Travis Perkins and other partners for giving up their time to make the week such a success.”