Nando’s to give over £80,000 to Scottish charities
Nando's Glasgow
A Glasgow homelessness charity has hailed the support of restaurant chain Nando’s – after the business pledged to donate more than £80,000 to charities across Scotland.
The famed eatery raised the money for organisations involved in its ‘No Chuckin’ Our Chicken’ initiative through the mandatory 5p and 10p charges on sales of carrier bags.
A total of 36 charities will benefit from the donation – 28 from Scotland and eight from Wales – and each will receive £3,000, adding up to a grand total of £108,000 worth of funding.
June Macleod, operations manager at Lodging House Mission, one of ten Glaswegian charities to receive the donation, said the move will help them provide homeless and vulnerable people with much-needed food and life experiences that they are missing.
She said: “Nando’s is an excellent support of ours. They donate chicken once a week for us, and we’re so grateful for that.
“But even taking out the £3,000, the fact they provide us with chicken is just an amazing contribution, and obviously something we can use in our lunches – usually a curry which the guys really love.”
Speaking about the charity and what she plans to do with the donation, she added: “We provide food, and usually food is something that people think they should be giving us money for the most, but actually we need money for activities.
“The best way we can engage with people is to spend time with them, and do something maybe a wee bit fun. Usually it’s an experience that without us they wouldn’t have.”
“We got a donation last year of £2,000 from the Eagle Lodge in Bishopbriggs and with that we were able to take a group of our older clients to Fort William overnight and they went on the Harry Potter train, an experience they will never replicate.
“So that’s what I’m planning to do with it to be honest.”
Garnethill Multicultural Centre’s foodbank is another of the recipients of the Nando’s donations.
Ross Donald, the manager of the centre, said: “Our funding is mainly self-generated income from the group’s that use the building.”
“But that’s not enough to run the centre so we do need to get external financial support, and previously that came from Glasgow City Council, but they cut our funding altogether three years ago, which put us in a pretty difficult position financially.
“We weren’t actually sure we were going to be able to make it.”
The multicultural centre has recently struck a new deal with Glasgow City Council, but at a reduced rate.
Though the money from Nando’s is to be given to the foodbank that operates at the premises – not the centre itself – the centre only charges those groups using the centre that can afford to pay for it, so more cash in the pocket of its user groups could also go towards supporting the whole centre in the long run.
