We make contributions to the community in many ways – through hundreds of local and national grants made every year across the UK, through thousands of employee volunteer hours, and through the donation of products from our inventory to local non-profits.
Amazon Fulfilment’s primary giving is focused on our neighbours in immediate need, particularly families fighting homelessness and hunger. We are also focused on providing resources to the next generation of innovators and helping ignite a lifelong passion for science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). Lastly, we listen to our fulfilment employees’ suggestions for local causes near and dear to their hearts and give to organisations in their local communities that have impact.
Amazon Goes Gold
Globally, childhood and adolescent cancer is threatening to overtake infectious diseases as one of the highest causes of disease-related mortality in children. As part of Amazon’s focus on supporting future innovators, Amazon decided to #GoGold during September, Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, to help raise awareness of this important health issue.
Amazonians across the world have shown their support for the cause by wearing their pyjamas to work in recognition of the brave children with cancer who often spend years living in their pyjamas during treatment and recovery. In 2018, Amazon hosted Camp Amazon-style events for children impacted by childhood cancer, where children and their families toured a fulfilment centre and engaged in fun STEM activities. As a part of Camp Amazon, donations were made to support kids and child cancer research at local children’s hospitals across the country.
Magic Breakfast
Magic Breakfast provides nutritious breakfasts to thousands of school children across Britain to help them perform better in their studies. Over half a million children in the UK arrive at school each day too hungry to concentrate and learn. By supporting Magic Breakfast, we are helping to address this issue by providing healthy breakfasts so that children can focus and improve their educational attainment.
We support 77 schools around our sites across the UK, reaching over 5,000 children a day in the local communities where we operate. Our funding enables each school to run a daily breakfast club, providing over one million breakfasts in the 2017-2018 school year which include wholegrain bagels, cereals, juice and porridge.
Along with funding daily breakfasts, our donation provides a dedicated support worker who works with the school to improve nutrition, spot the signs of hunger and target hard-to-reach children. Magic Breakfast helps schools educate children on healthy eating and reaches out to parents to improve nutrition in the home.
Our breakfast clubs don’t just stop at the provision of food – we also donate books and educational games to enhance the experience.
Camp Amazon
To connect Amazon’s investment in STEM education and robotics with our desire to encourage students to build, imagine and innovate, Camp Amazon is a robotics and STEM day camp held at or near our fulfilment centres across Britain. Our goal in Camp Amazon is to make the connection between STEM skills and the real-world application of STEM concepts in our fulfilment centres as well as provide tools and support to students in our communities. Camp Amazon gives children a chance to get excited about STEM and see robotics in action, and it shows how creative thinking is critical to Amazon operations.
Home-Start
To support families, Amazon has made a series of donations to local Home-Start branches in the communities neighbouring its head office, development centres in Cambridge and Scotland and fulfilment centres across the country to help give children the foundations needed to learn, develop and reach their potential. The donations support a number of the charity’s activities, including recruitment and training for volunteers and Christmas parties with a visit from Father Christmas, hampers and fun-filled performances for families.
Home-Start works closely with families struggling with post-natal depression, isolation, physical health problems, bereavement and many other issues by providing the support of a volunteer who spends about two hours per week in a family’s home, supporting them in the ways they require.
The donations allow the charity’s volunteers to develop and increase the level of one-to-one intensive support offered to families with pre-school children ahead of the busy Christmas period, ensuring that they have a positive environment in which they can play and learn. Local Amazon teams have also visited Home-Starts to meet families benefitting from the charity’s support.
