TK Maxx and HomeSense
Our mission is to support young people to fulfil their potential by helping them to get into work, education or training. This is no small feat, but it has been made easier over the past three years thanks to our partners TK Maxx and HomeSense, off-price fashion and homeware retailers, who have supported us in a number of different ways.
Our mission is to support young people to fulfil their potential by helping them to get into work, education or training. This is no small feat, but it has been made easier over the past three years thanks to our partners TK Maxx and HomeSense, off-price fashion and homeware retailers, who have supported us in a number of different ways.
After recognizing a need to give young people the opportunity to learn about the world of work and give them the foundations to get a job, TK Maxx become one of our partners back in 2013 and has since become one of our largest delivery partners of the Get into Retail programme in the UK. This four week course develops young people’s skills in the retail sector and supports them into positive outcomes in retail.
Alex Sheppard, 23 from Bristol, attended the Get into Retail programme with TK Maxx in June 2015. She's now employed by the off-price fashion retailer, based in the Galleries Shopping Centre store in Bristol.
In April 2016, we hit the road with HomeSense, to tour the UK as part of our #partofPT campaign – a campaign which aims to celebrate our 40th anniversary by recognising all of the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been touched by our work.
To help us reach as many people as possible, HomeSense sponsored the #PTTour airstream, which touched down at 19 regional pit-stops across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Understanding our need to engage trust staff, volunteers, and members of the public – HomeSense also provided a beautifully fitted garden theme setting direct from HomeSense stores to accompany the #PartofPT Tour bus. This outdoor garden helped attract vast numbers to interact with the bus. We stopped at the Birmingham, Cardiff, Northampton, Bristol and Edinburgh HomeSense stores, to ensure that some of the HomeSense customers and staff could be involved in the fun too.
HomeSense, the sister company of TK Maxx, appointed The Prince’s Trust as their national charity partner for 2016. HomeSense are supporting the development of our new Achieve programme, a personal development course aimed to re-engage 13 to 19-year-olds with education. Store associates and customers from across HomeSense’s 44 UK stores are fundraising through a number of in-store campaigns.
Later this year, HomeSense will be launching their ‘Hang a Bauble’ campaign whereby customers can purchase one of six limited edition Prince’s Trust and HomeSense branded baubles for £3.99, and £1.70 of this will be donated to us.
In addition, the homeware brand will be encouraging customers to donate £1 to The Prince’s Trust at the checkout, to receive a paper bauble where they can write a Christmas message to a Prince’s Trust supported young person. The paper bauble will then be hung on a tree in store, helping not only to raise funds for us but also to raise awareness of who we are.
At HomeSense, we are proud to be supporting The Prince’s Trust Achieve programme which helps young people who are facing challenges at school or college to excel in their education. With each of our 44 HomeSense stores raising money for Prince’s Trust projects, we are confident we will raise sufficient funds to help young people realise their potential.
- Suzanne Inch, Head of Retail for HomeSense
Furthermore, TK Maxx and HomeSense are the headline sponsor of our Celebrate Success Awards 2016/17. Throughout the autumn we hold 11 Oscar-style regional award ceremonies across the country. It’s our chance to tell the young people’s inspirational stories to packed audiences of friends and family as well as our network of partners and supporters. In the Spring we host our national award ceremony in London, where we’re joined by our young people and their family and friends, supporters, volunteers and our Celebrity Ambassadors. In March 2016, we were joined by Brian Cox, Ant and Dec, Geri Horner, Dynamo and Alesha Dixon to name a few.
