St John’s Innovation Centre based public relations and marketing agency, Conscious Communications, has rallied Cambridge companies to compile 40 food hampers, which have been donated to Cambridge City Foodbank and will be delivered to local people in need this Christmas.

Businesses from around St John’s Innovation Centre and Park were invited by the Conscious Communications team to provide as many of the required items for each hamper as they could and, with their generous donations, the initial target of 30 hampers was smashed.

Companies that donated and took part in the hamper collection included: Adrenaline Creative, Cambridge Healthcare Research, Darktrace, Ellexus, Endomag, Ensors, Green Custard, Insignis Cash Solutions, Live the City, Manifold Research, Markham Private Clients Limited, Metaswitch, OKRA Technologies, Pervas ID, Planetari, RedBite Solutions, VetCT and the management team at St John’s Innovation Centre.

The Christmas hamper collection rounds off a year of charitable initiatives undertaken by the team at Conscious Communications, which is committed to giving back to the community in a number of ways. Through an annual internal volunteering programme each team member receives two paid work days to support a charity of their choice. Past charities include The Lady Garden Foundation, a national women’s health charity that is raising awareness and funding for research into gynaecological cancers; and Stars, which supports young people in Cambridgeshire facing grief and dealing with loss. The agency also chooses an annual ‘Charity of the Year’, which benefits from the team’s public relations and marketing support pro-bono for the entire year. The 2019/2020 charity is Wood Green – The Animals Charity – one of the UK’s largest pet charities.

Alison Taylor, Managing Director at Conscious Communications, commented: “1 in 5 of the UK population live below the poverty line. This is a shocking statistic and hard to hear, especially at this time of year. We are lucky enough to be situated in a fantastic community of businesses, and we want to say a huge thank you for the generosity and kindness of our neighbours in their donations to our hamper collection. It was amazing to beat our target and donate 40 hampers to the Foodbank – you can be sure that we will be looking to beat that number next year!”

In addition to the company’s pro-bono charity work, Conscious Communications has recently been appointed by the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust, a charity working to equip young people with the skills to look after their mental wellbeing, to help launch its #RunForWellbeing campaign and support its partnership with the Cambridge half marathon.

Taylor continued: “We are looking forward to using our expertise to help a charity that does such meaningful work. We’re excited to get stuck into the programme and to continue to live up to our name and do good while doing well.”

For more information contact Ellie Tudor, Conscious Communications, Ellie.tudor@consciouscomms.com, 01223 421831, or visit www.consciouscomms.com