Giving back to the community is a fundamental part of Moto and our charity arm, Moto in the Community. We work with a vast range of charities and with your help we’ve raised £3,407,924. In 2012, we selected Help for Heroes as our charity partner, this allowed us to see first hand the impact their work has and they’ve been our chosen charity ever since. Help for Heroes is a fantastic charity that raises money to support members of the armed forces who have been wounded while serving their country.
Why Help for Heroes?
They offer a crucial network of support to those who’ve suffered life-changing injuries or illnesses, along with their families, while serving our country.
They have a number of recovery centres across the UK that offer a range of support, from psychological wellbeing support, to welfare advice and sports recovery activities. For example:
- They’ve provided over 8,000 grants (worth over £10m).
- They work with 60 specialist charity partners to provide grants totaling over £31m.
- They’ve delivered 350 sporting events across 50 sports.
- We helped launch a psychological wellbeing service, Hidden Wounds, that provides free support to veterans and their families.
- They provide fellowship, support and a listening ear through network groups which have over 6,000 members and counting. They organize activities, events, special offers and respite weekends throughout the year.
Emma Parry, Co-Founder of Help for Heroes, shared her thoughts on Moto’s contribution: “Congratulations to Moto on reaching the £1m milestone – it is such an amazing achievement. On behalf of our beneficiaries I’d like to thank the hundreds of thousands of Moto customers who took time out on their journey to show their support and to all the Moto staff who have made this happen. What you have done is making a difference and is helping rebuild lives. Thank you.”
What Moto in the Community does?
Each year we organise four nationwide Help for Heroes dedicated collections during Easter, Armed Forces Day, May bank holiday and Summer. From 2015 onwards, we have a static bike challenge to show support for the Help for Heroes Hero Ride.
Moto Hospitality hold an annual charity clay shooting day, this has gone from strength to strength; in 4 years we have raised over £120,000. We invite suppliers, partners, friends and guests to the prestigious E.J.Churchill for a fun day of clay shooting. We’re privileged to be joined by former service personnel representing Help for Heroes and our fifth year looks set to be our biggest success yet!
Another of Moto Hospitalities initiatives it the annual Golf Day held at the prestigious Celtic Manor Resort in Wales for the last two years. This is a highly successful event raising over £30k annually.
Help for Heroes benefits from charity collection tins, located at till points in all of our 45 Moto sites. We share a minimum of 20% of donations with them as our Official Charity Partner.
Highlights
- In total, we’ve raised over £1m for Help for Heroes. We were able to donate £400,000 in 2015, making it our most successful year to date.
- £200,000 has funded Help for Heroes charity Family Support Program, including a family room at Phoenix House Recovery Centre in Catterick.
- Another £200,000 funded a vegetable garden at Tedworth House, one of Help for Heroes’ Recovery Centres, and to sponsor a bedroom for a resident.
- Last July saw us cycle an incredible 15,584 kilometres for Hero Ride: The Moto Challenge which resulted in raising £22,000. We went one step better during Easter weekend 2016, raising over £55,000!
- We have raised a total of £120,000 through our annual charity clay shoot.
- In 2015 alone, we funded over 1,300 ‘Welcome Kit Packs’ to all new members of Help for Heroes, as well as helping Help for Heroes host 747 wounded military personal and veterans at fellowship events. We funded 4 national and 8 regional Band of Brothers support staff. We also helped support 3 Band of Brothers support programs. All of our contributions last year equated to £75 for each of the 4142 Band of Brother members.
Future plans
We’re excited for the future; we’ve pledged to raise a further £1m for Help for Heroes. As a result, we’ve got lots of upcoming fundraising events like our Hero Ride in May, Charity Clay Shoot and our golf day.
For more information, ways to donate, or if you’re looking to get involved in events, you can visit the Moto in the Community website.