Travis Perkins has engaged its transport fleet and a number of its Builders Merchant branches to help with distributing teddy bears and a personal message of hope to children throughout the largest refugee camps.
Together with Project Paddington, Travis Perkins collected thousands of teddy bears from around the country and transported them to central dispatch points, where they await imminent shipping out to refugee children in Syria, Turkey and Jordan.
The Sheffield-based Project Paddington was initially started as a way to help children respond to the growing refugee crisis. Travis Perkins colleague, Lauren Casey, came across the Project, and together with her 19 month old daughter, Harriet, decided to send a teddy. Later, Lauren found a Facebook post saying that the group was struggling with logistics and challenged Travis Perkins to get involved.
Lauren says: “I thought Project Paddington was a fantastic initiative and together with my daughter, Harriet, we picked out one of her teddies to send. When I saw that the charity needed help with logistics, I brought it to the attention of my colleagues in the Travis Perkins supply chain and together with Joel Brown, Paul van Haaren and Alistair Perks, we worked out a way that we could help.
