Over the past twelve months, VIVID has fundraised £10,000 for its official charity of the year, Veterans in Action.

The housing association signed Veterans in Action as its charity of the year after staff voted overwhelmingly for supporting the organisation’s fantastic work helping veterans adjust to civilian life. Both VIVID and Veterans in Action have close ties due to their locality and the high military population in the area in which they operate.

Veterans in Action, based in Hampshire, helps veterans and their families adjust to civilian life and become valued members of their local communities. Many veterans experience difficulties after leaving service and therefore struggle to integrate back into society. This can be due to mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, employment struggles, relationship breakdown or addiction.

VIVID employees took part in a whole range of activities and challenges, from bake sales, to football matches, to dress down days, as well as raffles and sweepstakes.

The funds raised have helped support Veterans in Action throughout the COVID-19 crisis. It allowed the charity to re-task their expedition vehicles which were used by the veterans to collect donated food. This food was then delivered as care packages to over 6,000 vulnerable people within the community. Not only did this help those receiving the care packages, many of which were veterans themselves, but it also helped hugely with the veteran’s confidence and standing within the community.

Cathryn Gee, Head of People at VIVID said: “Our staff are fantastic fundraisers and we’re honoured that Veterans in Action agreed to be our charity of the year. As an organisation, we’re delighted to have fundraised for such a brilliant cause that relates to so many of our employees, customers and our wider community.

“The work the charity does is vital, and we are proud that we’ve been able to offer our support, especially throughout 2020, which has proved a challenging year for many charitable initiatives.”

Billy MacLeod, Chief Operations Officer at Veterans in Action, said: “Over the last year the staff from VIVID have been supporting the work we do by carrying out many fundraising events. As a Hampshire based charity, it meant a great deal to us that the employees of VIVID were supporting us in many different ways and this was even more important through the COVID-19 epidemic as all fundraising avenues had been closed to us. The funds raised have helped us continue as a charity, enabling us to help many more veterans in need. We can’t thank everyone enough for their support.”

Many of VIVID’s staff and customers are ex-forces. It also signed up to the Armed Forces Covenant in September of last year, pledging to support serving personnel, veterans, reservists and their families, making the organisation an armed forces friendly employer.