The event, which included a Spring-themed arts and crafts session and an Easter egg hunt, marked one of the dates in the Bowmark calendar for in-person volunteering. The face-to-face sessions help PiP students to develop their social skills and build relationships between the teams.
It also marked Bowmark’s first trip to PiP’s new home on Kensal Road, following the success of ‘Project Beanstalk’, which raised over £500,000 to find a new home for the organisation. The new building enabled PiP to double its student hours over three years and increased the teaching space from three to six classrooms.
Bowmark has supported PiP since 2016 with fundraising, strategic advice and the sponsorship of Fruitful, a pop-up fruit juice stall run by its students. Fruitful offers PiP’s students the opportunity to develop workplace skills, including product creation, food hygiene and marketing. It also provides experience in teamwork, customer communication and handling payments, which helps to build confidence and prepare students for the working environment.
Antonia Cheong, partner and chair of Bowmark’s Charity Committee, commented: “It is always a wonderful experience spending time with the students and staff of PiP, whom we get to know better each year. Seeing first-hand how the students have thrived over the past five years has been incredibly rewarding.”