Pret teams up with Ockley young people’s charity

Earlier this year, Rachel Bartlett, fundraiser for the Amber Foundation, invited Pret Foundation Manager Giovanna Passini to visit their site for homeless young people, just outside Ockley.

The charity helps disadvantaged young people to gain the motivation, confidence and skills they need to get a job and find accommodation and then keep them.

Ms Bartlett said: “I had read about the great work Pret do within communities to help the homeless and was keen to explore whether they could help us in any way following the opening of their Horsham store.

“I am delighted to say that we now have a weekly agreement with Pret which enables us to collect some of their unsold products on a Saturday evening.

“Here at Amber it is an expensive business feeding a house of thirty plus young people every day. The arrangement we have formalised with Pret helps us a great deal as well as showing that other people actually care and are happy to help; it is a great example of sharing within a community.

“With food wastage at an all-time high, this is a sure way of saving great food from a skip and in our case, making a house full of young people very happy.”

Pret donated over 2.5 million products in 2012 to charities for the homeless across the UK and say ‘it’s much better our delicious food goes to people who really need it at the end of the day and not in the bin’.

Ms Passini added: “At Pret, we always try to have local connections with charities in the areas where we have a shop and it is great to be able to help the Amber Foundation with our unsold food.

“I really like how the Amber Foundation provides opportunities for vulnerable people.

“We work on long-term arrangements with charities to ensure that as much food gets to the homeless as possible.

“Over 94 per cent of our shops in the UK give their food to a homeless charity.”

For more information see Amber Foundation’s website.