Heidelberg Materials UK wins Volunteer Growth Award

We are delighted to announce that we received the Volunteer Growth Award at Chapter One’s Partner, Volunteer and School Recognition Awards, held in London. The awards ceremony highlighted the positive impact Chapter One’s reading programme has had on the children and families involved as well as celebrating the volunteers and partners.

Chapter One is a children’s literacy charity, dedicated to ensuring every child develops the literacy skills to succeed in their learning and in life. Its network of volunteers spends 30 minutes a week reading with children during term time. These one-to-one sessions help to build fluency, comprehension, phonics and foster reading confidence and enjoyment. The online reading programme connects schools and families with businesses and corporate volunteers to bring the gift of reading to children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Figures from Chapter One show that 40 per cent of 11-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds in England leave primary school unable to read to the expected standard. We are proud to support the work of Chapter One as a gold partner, and we now have more 60+ employee and external supply chain volunteers.

Jops Dann, Social Value and FAIR Co-Ordinator said: “Our volunteer growth has increased by a huge 636 per cent since we started supporting the charity in 2022. This could not have been achieved without the support from all the employee and customer volunteers that signed up last year.”

Our involvement is part of our commitment to support charities and local initiatives to increase our social value and employee wellbeing.