TJ donated six of their Christmas hampers to Southampton City Council’s (SCC) Annual Toy Appeal 2023, demonstrating their ongoing desire to give a little something back to the local community.
2023 was the 35th Annual Toy Appeal, which is run by SCC. Communities, community organisations, local businesses and charities are invited to donate new toys and gifts to the Southampton Toy Appeal to help spread festive cheer to vulnerable children and young people during the festive period.
This year’s appeal was launched on 17 November 2023 and over the five weeks, a staggering 41,000 toys and gifts were donated, the highest amount ever! At a time when the cost of living continues to affect many individuals and families, it’s great that so many people and organisations have contributed to making other people’s Christmases better than they expected.
Every year TJ spreads festive cheer amongst staff and the local community! We show our gratitude to our valued employees by giving each team member a luxury food hamper to enjoy, and this year we also donated a number of these to the Annual Toy Appeal as well.
TJ, who has been working in partnership with SCC since 2020, decided that the Toy Appeal was a great cause to donate hampers to this year. In previous years TJ has donated to other causes in the local community, including homeless shelters in Portsmouth.
The hampers, which contain luxury items such as coffee, mince pies, fudge, gourmet popcorn and chocolates hopefully brought smiles to the faces of the recipients, who were able to enjoy a tasty Christmas treat.
TJ began working with SCC in 2020 after securing a three-year contract to provide commercial waste disposal services, which was extended last year. The contract sees the commercial services arm of SCC, which provides waste management services to local businesses, disposing of waste at our state-of-the-art Dibles Wharf Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in central Southampton.
SCC is responsible for collecting up to 20,000 tonnes of waste annually from businesses in and around Southampton and this is taken to Dibles Wharf for disposal, which encompasses recycling and generation of energy from waste.
TJ Waste General Manager Luke Haskell said: “We love rewarding our staff at Christmas, giving the hampers as a thank you for all they do to ensure TJ runs smoothly on a day-to-day basis. To be able to donate a number of these hampers to a great community campaign such as the Annual Toy Appeal is great and demonstrates our desire to contribute to local communities in any way we can.”
Councillor Jacqui Rayment, who is the Councillor for Bevois Ward and served as 1st Lord Mayor of Southampton from 2022 to 2023, came to collect the hampers from TJ’s headquarters personally. She said: “With many organisations like TJ Waste playing their part this year, 163 young people received a hamper full of treats which they would not otherwise have had. We know that they were most welcome by the young people and we are delighted that TJ supported the fantastic cause.”
Luke attended an awards ceremony hosted by the council on Monday 15 January and was presented with a certificate of thanks for TJ’s contribution.
Find out more about the other community initiatives TJ contributes to…
