Our CSR Programme - CluneTech Cares, is a fantastic representation of what we are - a team of truly caring individuals giving our best to support and add value, not only to our customers, but also to the communities in which we operate. CluneTech Cares is employee-led and has three key pillars: Wellness, Culture & Community, and Sustainability. It has been a busy quarter so make sure to check out some of our latest activities below.
For the month of October, we dedicated our CSR Spotlight to raising funds for Race for the Cure. Race for the Cure plays a crucial role in supporting breast cancer organizations and hospitals across Europe.
With a staggering 500,000 new diagnoses and 125,000 lives lost to breast cancer in Europe every year, the funds raised through events like this are of vital importance. They enable these organizations to continue their life-saving work, providing support, research, and awareness to combat this disease.
In October, we organized a series of impactful events and activities to raise vital funds and awareness for this truly amazing cause. These activities included encouraging our colleagues to jazz up their exercise routines and paint their parkrun pink in support of breast cancer awareness, along with team fundraising walks including one in Varna, Bulgaria which saw more than 80 people take part.
Thanks to the efforts of our team, we made a donation of €1,300 to this incredible cause.
This Movember, we dedicated our CSR Spotlight to raise awareness of men's health issues, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men's suicide. Movember was established in 2003 by a few friends over a beer in a pub just outside Melbourne, Australia. During Movember, men grow a moustache for the month, getting friends, family and colleagues to donate to their effort. Anyone can get involved - move, host a mo-ment and more!
Movember fundraisers are a global community of fired up Mo Bros and Mo Sisters – aka rock stars making a difference in mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer and testicular cancer. Since its foundation, Movember has raised over 400 million euros for men's health issues - much of which has been invested in life changing research.
During the month of November, CluneTech employees helped us raise funds in style, by growing their own Mo’s and moving for men’s mental health. For every photo and video with the hashtag #Movember uploaded by our staff, CluneTech Cares donated a whopping €50 on behalf of every employee who took part.
To make things even better, for every employee who attended our webinar promoting the education of Men’s Health at the end of November, CluneTech included their attendance as an added donation in honour of our CSR Spotlight of the Month.
At the end of the month, CluneTech made a monetary donation in support of Movember, benefiting a number of incredible men’s health charities and organisations. Well done to all of our amazing colleagues for their participation last November.
In honour of Human Rights Day, CluneTech Cares has dedicated December’s CSR Spotlight of the Month to supporting charities who help to prevent, or support those, experiencing poverty or homelessness.
This December, we issued a call out to staff to help raise much needed funds by joining our clothing donation to the St. Vincent DePaul charity. For every clothing donation we receive at Kilkenny HQ for the St. Vincent DePaul, CluneTech Cares has pledged to donate €10 on behalf. For employees outside of Kilkenny, CluneTech will donate €10 on behalf of those who take part in a virtual 5K for this months cause.
At the end of the month, CluneTech will make a monetary donation towards our dedicated charity of the month. These funds and donations will help St. Vincent DePaul to continue their incredible work providing direct assistance to those in need.
Thanks to our team member Andreea Donnelly and her CSR submission at the start of the year, CluneTech has already donated a total of €1,000 between two amazing charities in the fight against homelessness and poverty.
Theses charities include...
A Lending Hand - A Dublin based charity which helps the capital's rough sleepers with support, food and sleeping bags outside the GPO and Bank of Ireland on College Green. A Lending Hand feeds on average at least three or four families a day in the city.
Meath Food Bank - Founded by Ashling Lowe, Meath Food Bank supports the homeless and those less fortunate by providing them with food, toiletries and other much needed resources. The Meath Food Bank has helped over 1000 families between Christmas 2022 and Easter 2023 alone.
A huge thank you again to TransferMate's Andreea Donnelly who brought both of these incredible charities to our attention.
As this year’s CSR Spotlight of the Month comes to a close, we would like to thank each and everyone of our amazing employees for being a part of CluneTech's commitment to creating positive change in our community.
Until next year!
CluneTech Cares is run based solely on employee requests. At the beginning of each year, a call out is distributed to staff asking them to recommend the charities / causes they’d like to see us support.
Last October, CluneTech was honoured to contribute towards a request submitted by Ellen Brennan, Head of Settlements at TransferMate, dedicated to The Rita Fenlon Remembrance Run.
In 2019, Rita Fenlon sadly lost her battle to cancer at the age of 39. Rita's husband, James, family and friends set out to keep Rita's memory alive by establishing The Rita Fenlon Remembrance Run in 2020, raising much needed funds for some charities close to their heart.
Speaking about the success of the initiative, Ellen Brennan said:
“October 2023 saw the 3rd annual tractor run fundraising initiative in memory of Rita which proves to be a great success every year. So far, the funds raised have been used to buy a scanner in Waterford University Hospital and to aid the Irish Cancer Society Night Nurse Service, Eist Cancer Support & Solas Cancer Support Centre.
A huge thank you to CluneTech Cares for their kind donation to the Rita Fenlon Remembrance Run. Such very worthy causes that help so many families at such difficult times.”
Thank you to Ellen Brennan for submitting such a worthy cause to our CluneTech Cares requests this year. We were absolutely honoured to support this fundraiser. From all here at CluneTech, we wish you all the best with next year's initiatives in memory of Rita.
Giving Tuesday is a day that encourages people to give back in whatever ways they can. For this year's Giving Tuesday, we were honored to support three amazing charities who work incredibly hard to make a positive difference within their communities and beyond. We were delighted to have the opportunity to make a donation to each of these causes to mark this global generosity movement.
Take a look at our three charities below that we chose to celebrate our #GivingTuesday with this year:
Coalition for the Homeless, Inc. - Through CluneTech Cares, we were honoured to make a donation to the Coalition for the Homeless in New York City. Enda Kelleher, VP of Sprintax, volunteers in their soup kitchen every week and brought the amazing work that they do to our attention. In its more than 35 year history, the program has distributed more than 7 million meals and has never missed a single night of operation — allowing them to build an invaluable level of trust among some of the hardest to reach and most marginalized of their homeless neighbours.
UNICEF - Following a unanimous vote at the first session of the UN General Assembly, UNICEF was founded in 1946. The mission of the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, as it was then known, was to provide short-term emergency relief to children in post-World War II Europe. Now, as the world’s largest provider of vaccines, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, safe water and sanitation, quality education and skill building, HIV prevention and treatment for mothers and babies, and the protection of children and adolescents from violence and exploitation.
Concern Worldwide - Founded by John and Kay O’Loughlin-Kennedy in 1968, Concern started as a small group of people in Ireland who spearheaded a major aid operation in response to famine and conflict in Biafra. Over 50 years later, Concern have continued to effectively respond to major crises around the world including Syria, Nepal and Ethiopia, with commitment and dedication, aiming to reduce suffering and combat poverty and hunger.
Introduced in 2021, our CSR Volunteer Day empowers each employee to give back to the charities and causes closest to them. Since its inception, 160+ CluneTech employees have contributed to causes which they find meaningful, and this number keeps growing. See what they had to share with us about their experience this quarter:
Gloria Sarova, TransferMate – Cleaning the Yantra River Banks in Veliko Tarnovo
Speaking about her Volunteer Day, Gloria said:
“On the day of Bulgaria’s National Revival Leader, a group of local volunteers and I gathered to clean the banks of the Yantra River, in the section under the iron rope bridge. After cleaning the banks of the Yantra River, past Mavrikov’s area, we continued collecting waste on the road around Tsarevets fortress and one of the local high schools where high school students smoke secretly. This volunteering activity was very fulfilling as I walk by those areas quite often, I always notice how polluted they are.”
“While the areas that we cleaned were suggested by me, I must share that in Veliko Tarnovo there is a group of volunteers who help the local community by cleaning polluted areas regularly. The interesting thing about the day was that a group of foreign tourists who were hiking in the area joined us and spent the rest of the day cleaning with us. A good example is contagious! “
Well done to Gloria on her involvement in this incredible volunteering activity.
