Double boost for women's refuge

Pictured left to right at the Forth Walk premises are Margo McCormick (project manager, Women's Aid), Wendy Fotheringham (supervisor, Curves), Natalie Stevenson (also from Curves) and Iain Kirkwood (customer services manager, Tesco).

The supermarket donated Bags For Life to help the food drive and staff at Curves say they would like to thank everyone that donated food - including new and existing members.

Last year, the Curves Food Drive collected almost 7million kg of food for local communities all over the world. This year for its 12th food drive, Curves has set a goal to collect 8million kg to help even more people in need.

And employees from Maintenance and Property Care (MPC) gave up their valuable time to help Women's Aid.

MPC's community engagement team contacted Women's Aid and asked how they could help. The Women's Aid team were delighted at the offer and asked MPC if they could convert a room which was being used as a general storage room into a meeting/interview room.

MPC employees also removed a redundant shower from a storage room and instead fitted shelving and a lock allowing the room to be used for storing confidential files. In the true spirit of partnership, MPC also approached McGarry flooring to see if they could supply and fit a new carpet for the room. Liam from McGarry flooring said: "We were happy to help such a worthy cause"

Margot McCormack, project manager for Women's Aid, praised MPC for their work in refurbishing the room and commented that the use of this room will make a huge difference to the invaluable service provided by Women's Aid in North Lanarkshire.

Jacqui Butler, customer care and quality manager, commented: "Many people at MPC already do a lot of valuable voluntary work in their local communities and we are pleased to support these efforts further."

Councillor Barry McCulloch, convener of housing and social work at North Lanarkshire Council, said: "We welcome MPC's commitment in supporting the local community. Women's Aid will benefit greatly from using their new meeting room and I would encourage more local companies to follow MPC's example in offering assistance."