Following the recent news that Cribbs Sports and Social Club and Holy Trinity Primary School had been successful in their Aviva Community Fund applications, I visited Aviva’s headquarters in Stoke Gifford to learn more about their work within our community. While the Community Fund last year gave £11.6 million to 1600 projects, I discovered it is only one of the many programmes Aviva run in our local area.
One way Aviva encourage their staff to engage with their community is by giving every employee 21 hours paid volunteering time and last year Aviva staff at the Stoke Gifford site gave 1200 hours to local groups and projects. This was on top of the internal charity work they do, fundraising for a range of good causes including St Peter’s Hospice and Children’s Hospice South West.
I was very pleased to hear that Aviva are an armed forces friendly organisation, allowing staff the flexibility required to be reservists and assisting service personnel through a career recovery service which helps veterans find employment once they have retired from active duty. I look forward to joining their next careers day with Help for Heroes in May to see their good work in action.