On Wednesday, 20 December four of IKEA Reading’s team cooked Christmas lunch for the members and staff from Launchpad 135, our work and life skills centre.
Led by chef Christian, David, Emma and Ella prepared an amazing lunch – with all the trimmings.
Events like this are a fantastic way for our members to rebuild their confidence and experience something that many people would take for granted. We were really humbled when one of our members reflected that the lunch was “very likely to be the only gift they would receive this year.”
The Launchpad team were delighted to be supported by IKEA. There’s no doubt in our minds that the team lived up to their key values of ‘Togetherness’ and ‘Caring for people and planet’ this week.
As well as great food, everyone got stuck into traditional Christmas games and singing Christmas songs. One of our members, Jim*, played the piano for everyone, saying afterwards, “it’s been a long time since I’ve had the confidence to play in front of anyone. Without all the help I’ve had from Launchpad this year there’s no way I would have done that!”
The whole team at Launchpad 135 is so happy that the IKEA team enjoyed themselves too, Ella, one of the volunteers emailed us to say:
“I just wanted to pop a quick email to thank you once again for organising with us the Winter Celebration we held for your members at Launchpad today. The team and I had an excellent time providing the meal for your members and staff and it is opportunities like this that really help bring the heart of what we believe in at IKEA to fruition in helping our local community.
“We hope you and your members enjoyed the service.”
We hope to do something again in the new year about potentially doing a work-ready workshop or something similar.
Thank you so much Christian, David, Emma, and Ella – we can’t wait to work with you again. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from everyone at Launchpad.
*We have protected the names and identities of our members in this article and photos.
