House-builders’ team help give Samaritans branch a makeover
Volunteers from a national housebuilding company have revamped a local Samaritans branch in Horsham.
Cala Homes’ South Home Counties and its subcontractor partners – N Smith Electrical, AJM Carpentry and Permanex Security – have redecorated the Denne Road branch’s office and installed a new video entry system and door.
Mike Harvey-Browne, commercial manager at Cala South Home Counties, said: “We are always looking for ways we can help our partners at Samaritans across the regions and were keen to get involved in fundraising and other activities as a team.
“When we heard that the Horsham branch could use some assistance in revamping the ground floor of their office, we couldn’t
wait to get involved.
“The waiting room is open to anybody who wants help from Samaritans, so we wanted to freshen it up and make it a more welcoming place.
“We went to visit and discussed what Samaritans needed, and shortly after, a group of us from Cala, along with three of our subcontractors, helped give the room a makeover.”
The volunteers at the Horsham branch are among 20,000 who give their time to Samaritans, responding to a call for help every six seconds – totalling more than five million calls every year.
Cala, which is delivering the first homes at the Mowbray development in North Horsham, began their charity partnership with Samaritans in 2020.
The charity has received almost £300,000 so far through corporate donations and employee fundraising, which has enabled Samaritans to cover the cost of responding to 58,200 calls.
Jacqui Clark, branch director at Horsham and Crawley Samaritans, said: “We simply can’t thank Cala enough for the work they carried out to transform our face-to-face visitor room.
“It has gone from being a dark and dingy area to a bright and welcoming place for our visitors.
“We are very pleased with the video entry system, which is amazing, and the team that helped us were great guys; friendly, hardworking and pleased to be of use.”