10 Years of Community Paintbrush – Our Favourite Projects
11 November 2022
We can’t believe it’s been 10 whole years since we launched Community Paintbrush as a way to commit to our CSR strategy and support charities and projects close to our heart.
With Community Paintbrush, we’ve donated paint and other supplies, volunteered on projects and raised money for important causes.
We’ve worked on some incredible campaigns. Here, we’ve picked out a few of our favourite campaigns for each year since we started.
2012 – Movember madness
Bagnalls men from our Shipley and Bristol branches decided to grow Moose-tashes to raise money and awareness for prostate cancer.
There were some colleagues who, despite their best efforts, could not register on the facial fluff-o-meter, and others who ended up looking like the Yeti’s cousin after the first day!
The final group photo of the Bristol contingent (below) looked like an audition for a Village People tribute band!
We raised over £800 for this very worthy cause – well done lads!
2013 – Community Paintbrush supports budding artists
Bagnalls gladly donated some tins of paint to help the art and drama departments at Trinity Academy in Thorne. Our Community Paintbrush scheme was established to support projects such as this, where odds and ends of paint that we no longer have a commercial need for can be put to good use by others. The brightly coloured water-based paints are already being used by the students on some very creative projects (see below). Keep painting!
2014 – Community Paintbrush reaches Sierra Leone
Community Paintbrush went international when we donated paint and decorating materials to Greenholm Primary School to support its cross-continent project. These supplies went towards redecorating the year 4 classroom and Headteacher’s office at the SDA school in Kissi Town, Sierra Leone!
2015 – Wishing Wishart all the best
Bagnalls | 10 July
Another international project saw us donate paint to help redecorate a school in Malawi.
Our Leeds, York and Doncaster branches put a lot of time into finding water-based paints that could be used by the school. What’s more, Dulux’s Doncaster branch donated an extra 20 cans of paint!
Wishart said “Bagnalls have again been so generous with this donation of paint. Our resources are very limited and we would not be able to buy such volumes of paint to redecorate the school.”
2016 – Express painting for South Western
Bagnalls was delighted to get involved in South Western’s 20th anniversary by supporting its chosen charity event. Our painting and supervisory skills were desperately needed to help transform the footbridge at Templecombe station. Bagnalls worked with a team of volunteers, including South West Train office staff, Friends of Templecombe and Network Rail, to complete the preparation and repainting of the bridge structure.
2017 – Donation for Tree Planting
We made a donation that went towards planting cherry blossom trees in Stanley Park, Liverpool. The park has always been a much-loved area in Liverpool, but due to lack of investment and vandalism, it had fallen into a poor state.
Our investment formed part of a wider project alongside the Royal Liverpool University Hospital (RLUH) to restore the park and allowed for around 50 cherry blossom trees to be planted across a beautiful trail for park users to enjoy. What’s more, Kev Travers and fellow Bagnalls volunteers helped to plant the trees!
2018 – A Splash of Colour
We teamed up with Galliford Try FM (GTFM) on its community afterschool club project, CK’s, run by Calshot School in Birmingham. The school had been fundraising to brighten up the external areas of their building and was looking for paint donations.
Bagnalls and GTFM supplied all the exterior paint and tools to decorate the original areas including the walls, fencing, benches, shed and doors. There was even paint left over to decorate wooden garden boxes that the children could grow fruit and vegetables in!
2019 – Just Another Brick In the Wall!
We’ve been a long-time supporter of Leeds Mencap, and we were over the moon to see our support recognised with a brick on the Leeds Mencap Supporters Wall!
We’d recently sent three painters to help with the redecoration of the Vinery Centre, then our lovely colleague volunteers posed for a photo next to the supporter’s wall. We’ve been supporting Leeds Mencap since 1992 after working on a Challenge Anneka project together – who remembers watching that?
2020 – NHS Charities Together
COVID presented a lot of challenges to businesses, including the NHS. We wanted to positively impact the NHS at the same time as ensuring safety in the Bagnalls workplace. That’s why we put together a Safety Climate Survey to evaluate our COVID-19 protocols, with a pledge to donate £5 to the NHS Charities COVID-19 Appeal for every completed survey.
We’re delighted to say that, thanks to the 356 colleagues who took part in the survey, we raised £1,780 for the appeal!
2021 – Top Marks for Bagnalls & Cadent
In another school project, volunteers from Bagnalls teamed up with Cadent to spend a day during October half-term brightening up the school building. Our work included redecorating the music room, library, storeroom and plenty more. As well as this, we supplied the paint and equipment to subcontractor J K Roadmarking so it could repaint the car park linings.
This is one of our favourite collaborative projects – it shows how much businesses can achieve for the community when they come together!
Headteacher Tony James said of the project: “We are incredibly grateful for the support from all three companies. Through the outstanding social value work undertaken, our school building, grounds and wider community were improved for all. The teams were professional and hardworking and there was a real buzz in the air created by their collective ambition. As we say at Malvern – together we are stronger! A huge thank you for supporting our community – your kindness is greatly appreciated.”
2022 – Dragon Boat Race for Andy’s Man Club
We’re proud to be a supporter of Andy’s Man Club, a charity that aims to help men feel more comfortable talking about mental health. We have mental health first aiders (MHFAs) at every Bagnalls branch so that we can support any employee when they need mental health support.
We took part in the Dragon Boat race to raise funds for Andy’s Man Club – colleagues from our Yorkshire branches based in Shipley, Leeds, York and Doncaster all took part together as a crew to support this worthwhile charity.
