Stagecoach gets festive with communities across the UK, bringing festive cheer up and down the country

Stagecoach, the UK’s largest bus and coach operator, is getting communities up and down the country in the Christmas spirit by holding events, Santa’s Grottos, prize giveaways and supporting local charities.

Starting in West Scotland, the team have been busy handing out chocolate advent calendars to children in towns and cities across the region. Depots have been collecting food to donate to Cumbernauld and Kilysth foodbanks and are also supporting ‘the night before Christmas’ charity by donating hundreds of presents. Santa also made an appearance in Ayr bus station, where children and families met Santa and received a small gift with a donation to Aoife's Sensory Bus, a charity which, with the help from Stagecoach, has been installed with a sensory interactive environment so it can travel around schools and communities in Ayrshire. The Sensory Bus is used by children and young people with additional support needs within schools and local communities of Ayrshire. And close by in East Scotland, the company sponsored a toy appeal in West Fife and a charity advent calendar for ’Finding your Feet’, a charity supporting amputees.

Across the border in the North East of England, the Stagecoach team transformed a bus into a pop-up Santa's Grotto outside Tesco supermarket in Kingston Park on Friday 26 November, in aid of fundraising for the Chronicle's Sunshine Fund charity. The Sunshine Fund is a North East based charity which supports disabled children by supplying them with specialist equipment not available on the NHS to allow them to live as normal a life as possible.

At Stagecoach Merseyside and South Lancashire, Driver Paige Farrell who works in Birkenhead, has decorated and created a Christmas bus to hold a free Santa grotto on 22 December, in aid of the Mission Christmas Charity where donations can be made and children will receive a selection box or reindeer dust.

Santa is also ditching his sleigh for a Stagecoach bus in Oxfordshire and Manchester where he will be delivering care packages and chocolates to staff and patients across four hospital sites in support of Oxford Hospitals Charity and will also be collecting and fundraising for Forever Manchester, a charity who funds community projects. In Manchester, Santa will be giving away vouchers to customers and local depots will also be collecting food to donate to foodbanks in the area.

Further south in Portsmouth, the team supported Small Business Saturday where they offered a family ticket for £4 on 4 December giving a saving of over 50%, to encourage people to shop local and use the High Street. Not only that, the company will have Santa buses running across the South to collect money for Alices Arc, Mountbatten Hampshire Hospice and Stone Pillow and also giving out goodies to children and customers.

Fundraising and giving back to those who need it is also an important part of Christmas and teams in Wales, East Midlands and South West are holding fundraising events with staff to raise money for local charities. In Wales, drivers, engineers and support staff can get in on the action by wearing a Christmas jumper or outfit for a £1 donation which will be donated to local TY Hafans Children Hospice. Fleet Engineer Robert McEwen along with the teams at Blackwood and Caerphilly depots are also selling Christmas presents for £1 and staff will be entered for free into a Christmas raffle with proceeds going to Ty Hafans Childrens Hospice. Porth depot staff are busy buying raffle prizes and a Christmas hamper with all proceeds supporting Porth driver Jamie Morris whose son Cian was born with no fingers on his right hand and needs a robotic ‘hero arm’ to gain independent movement and control of a second hand.

East Midlands have something similar planned with donations for wearing a Christmas jumper, to a hamper raffle, a crazy Christmas costume competition and even arranging a prize draw for customers to win Smyth’s toys voucher with each entry received given a donation to Macmillan Cancer Support.

The team at South West England are also taking part in the Christmas jumper day with a bake sale and coffee morning to raise money for Save the Children. To get local children in the Christmas spirit they have installed a 17ft Christmas Tree at Exeter Bus station, and are asking children to colour in Christmas bauble decorations to appear on the tree as well as partnering with Exeter City Football Club to deliver Christmas presents to the children of Bramble ward at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.

Stagecoach continue to make a significant contribution towards the communities they serve through time, resource, money and sponsorship, both centrally and within its local operating companies. In their new sustainability strategy: Driving Net Zero, Better Places to Live and Work, the company set out their principles on how they will do this such as undertaking a programme of voluntary and charitable activities focused on key issues identified through their research and stakeholder engagement: health and wellbeing; young people, skills and employment; loneliness and social isolation; accessibility and opportunity. Stagecoach has also recently established a new Stagecoach Giving for Good charity committee where they will allocate 0.5% of profit before tax to charities and other good causes.

Carla Stockton-Jones, UK Managing Director for Stagecoach said: “Christmas is a time of year for giving, and our thoughts naturally go to those less fortunate in our communities. I am incredibly proud of all our teams across the UK who continue to go above and beyond and the initiatives that the local operating companies have planned will help so many people at this time of year whilst also making customers and staff smile. One of our main core values at Stagecoach is to support and connect our communities and these acts of kindness and compassion show just how important this is for all of the team here.”

ENDS