The team at Finesse Windows, a family-run business based in Birmingham, have shown their support for our NHS Heroes at University Hospitals Birmingham by making donations totalling an incredible £2,100!

The employees of the company have made three donations to University Hospitals Birmingham Charity’s NHS Superheroes appeal, beginning with a donation of £1,000 during the first lockdown. Ellie Franklin is the Customer Service Manager at Finesse Windows and is pictured above with her brother, Russell Bridge. She said: “When the first lockdown hit we were keen to keep in touch with our customers and we wanted to play our part in helping the NHS.

“We launched an appeal for photos and asked our lovely customers to send us pictures of their recent installations with permission for us to use them in our new brochure. We promised that if we had 39 responses (to mark our 39th birthday) we would donate the £1,000 that we had earmarked for professional photography to UHB Charity to support our amazing NHS key workers.”

“We were successful and thanks to our wonderful customers we made our first donation of £1,000.”

Around the same time, Finesse Windows was contacted by a customer for whom they had been installing a conservatory when the lockdown started. The customer urgently needed the job finishing due to a change in family circumstances and the installs team pulled out all of the stops to finish the project, whilst keeping to the COVID-19 guidance in place at the time.

The customer was so grateful that they gave an additional £300 to Finesse Windows and asked the team to donate it to a charity on their behalf. Ellie said: “It was a heart-warming and inspiring donation made by a customer facing their own personal challenges amidst the terrible situation that we were all in.

“We decided to match their donation and we were therefore able to make a further donation to UHB Charity of £600.”

The team were not going to stop there however, and as the winter approached they decided to set themselves a challenge to run or walk 500 miles between them before 23 December. Colleagues spent December tracking the miles that they ran or walked before and after work. They smashed their target and donated another £500, taking their total to £2,100.

Ellie said: “Setting challenges and donating money has helped us all to deal with this terrible situation as a team. It’s given us a sense of teamwork and helped us all to keep motivated and focused when we felt so helpless, and humbled by the tremendous work the NHS has continued to do.

“Our donation has hopefully gone a small way to help, and to show that we are all thinking of all our wonderful NHS heroes and that we appreciate you all.”

Charlotte Schofield, Director of Fundraising at UHB Charity, said: “On behalf of everyone at UHB Charity I would like to thank everyone from Finesse Windows for going the extra mile to support our NHS.

“The pandemic has put a huge strain on our NHS, but thanks to the incredible generosity that people across the country have shown, we have been able to do so much to support our staff and patients through these difficult months.”

Find out more about how UHB Charity has been supporting our NHS heroes through this pandemic here.

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