Sodexo CEO and family gives back to the local community with Fareshare

Chief executive officer for Sodexo UK and Ireland, Debbie White, and her family recently enjoyed a day of giving back to the local community, when they volunteered with FareShare for the day.

Helping in one of FareShare’s 17 nationwide depots, Debbie, along with husband Pete and her two younger sons, Aaron (8) and Alasdair (13), helped to carry out the charity’s daily tasks. The White family team spent time counting, categorising and packing surplus food.

Debbie then joined one of the FareShare drivers, helping to deliver the surplus food to a wide variety of community organisations, including the West London Day Centre – a shelter offering food, counselling and support to the homeless - and Springfield, a day centre for children.

FareShare is the national food poverty and redistribution charity that rescues surplus, fit for consumption food from industry and redistributes it to over 700 community organisations across the country.

Since 2005, Sodexo and FareShare have been working together to tackle hunger and poor nutrition through Sodexo’s STOP Hunger campaign. Since the start of the partnership, FareShare has benefited from over 200 days’ worth of employee volunteering, some £500,000 raised by Sodexo employees under the STOP Hunger initiative and over 10 tonnes of surplus fit for consumption food. Volunteering is at the heart of the partnership and gives employees the chance to make a real difference, while promoting team-building and inspiring STOP Hunger fundraising.

Of the experience, Debbie said: “At Sodexo we strive to contribute to all the areas where we operate and our partnership with FareShare enables us to achieve this objective. It is extremely important to me and my family to give back to the community and so today has been a valuable day for me both personally and professionally.”