Bromborough community champion Helen-Louise raises £200k in ten years
Our Bromborough store's community champion Helen-Louise Sestan-Burton has been a passionate supporter of her local community for the last 10 years years – raising £88,000 for local groups and good causes since the Asda community programme was launched in 2012.
And on top of that she's arranged grants and funding to community projects from the Asda Foundation amounting to a total of £118,000 – bringing the overall total raised for the local community to £206,000.
Helen-Louise loves her role and is proud of the impact she's had in the local area. She said: "I’d like to think at the very least I’ve brought a smile and a warm, caring, helping hand wrapped in Asda greens."
It was in late 2011 that Helen-Louise first heard of the new community champion role.
She said: "My store manager at the time thought my personality would absolutely fit the role and gave me the new community life job specifications. It looked like an interesting challenge, and 10 years on it was the best decision ever!
"What I remember of the new community programme in 2012 was exploring the local communities surrounding my store, as I am not a local, and being so surprised by the extent of community activities and just wanting to throw myself into the thick of it.
"I remember being slightly tentative with the first groups and schools I supported. A deer in the headlights during those first healthy eating sessions. Winging my way through, hoping and praying the children would not see my fear. Also meeting community groups for the first time wondering if they were wondering what and why on earth an Asda colleague was there. It was all a leap of faith into an unknown.
"I still work with some of those first groups, particularly the schools, though much has evolved over years of interaction and understanding what value I can bring to the groups. I pride myself on not just being a volunteer but an active facilitator of activities and ideas."
Helen-Louise says her highlights of the last 10 years include meeting the Prince of Wales in recognition of her amazing fundraising work for our Tickled Pink breast cancer charity campaign.
She's devised fun and creative fundraising activities including designing Tickled Pink quilts like the one below, as as hosting BBQs, arranging balloon modelling and even a two-week fundraising step-a-thon. She met Prince Charles at Breast Cancer Now's research centre in London in May 2021.
She's also extremely proud of the fact that she helped Wirral Age UK Meadowcroft Community Hub receive £20,301 through the Asda Foundation and Rock Ferry Salvation Army obtain £18,572.84.
She said: "These are all great memories and achievements but the thing that makes me most proud is the impact I have on primary age children who I often work with, whether in school or at a school holiday programme or club, providing healthy eating activities.
"This was really brought to life last summer during a community clear-up after the local New Ferry Community Festival. I ran into a large group of young teens who quickly recognised me and started reminiscing about the times I had attended their school (Grove Street Primary School) to deliver healthy eating sessions, from Bread In the Bag, to vegetable pizza making, Italian taste testing and making guacamole. To hear the impact my visits, through Asda’s community programme, had on them was humbling yet inspiring."
Over the past ten years Helen-Louise has:
- Volunteered, supported, and ran community outreach sessions with 149 local good causes, schools, and charities, spanning 866 community engagement visits
- Helped 46 local good causes and charities to use the Bromborough store to raise awareness or use the community space
- Helped 79 local good causes and charities use the store to fundraise, raising an impressive £95,567.99
- Donated goods worth £12,837.04 to local good causes schools and charities thanks to the ASDA community programme
- Helped 41 local good causes, schools and charities obtain 58 small grants through ASDA Foundation, amounting to £45,724.81.
- Helped and supported Wirral Age UK Meadowcroft community Hub to obtain £20’301 and Rock Ferry Salvation Army to obtain £18572.84 to transform their community spaces through the large grant stream funding totalling £43,873.84
- 98 local good causes schools and charities have received a share of £28,500.00 through Asda Foundations Green Token Giving scheme through Asda Bromborough
- In total through Asda Bromborough and the Asda Foundation our local community has been awarded £118, 098.65
Fundraising includes:
- 10 years of Tickled Pink £52,828.27
- 10 years of Children In Need £11,889.99
- 2012 Fields In Trust £2,112.00
- 2013-2016 Orchid £6,291.20
- 2015 Unicef (Nepal Earthquake) £1,394.00
- 2021 Fight Hunger £868.81
Helen-Louise said: "I’d like us to keep leading the retail way to better communities, helping to provide real practical support to the many challenges our communities and customers are facing."