For the last 3 years, O’Neill & Brennan have organised a Christmas Charity Draw on behalf of our clients. The objective is to give back by helping charities at a crucial time of year. We do this by placing them in a tombola, giving them the chance to win a £1000 donation. Each one of our clients is able to pick a charity of their choice to enter the draw. Ten charities are picked in total and they are then notified by ourselves and the client who chose them. We are delighted to be able to run this draw and it receives great feedback from all involved. We ask the charities that win to provide us with a bit more information about themselves and what they do so we are able to raise further awareness through our social media channels.
Watch our video to see last year's draw.
In 2022 O’Neill & Brennan hosted our first Social Value Tournament in partnership with Bridge The Gap Football.
Bridge the Gap creates football communities across the United Kingdom to help young men between the ages 18-30. Together they build friendships, develop leaders, and transform lives. This is all in aid of keeping people off the streets and reducing knife crime.
We were lucky enough to partner with several amazing charities and social enterprises to deliver this event. This is a great opportunity to bring construction companies together across London with one common goal, to give back to our communities. We collaborated with HMP Brixton's "The Clink" to cater the event.
The day was supported by our partner Combat2Coffee who offered refreshments throughout the day. All of their profits go towards helping support veterans and their families with mental health issues and PTSD.
Bridge the Gap currently have 25 locations across the UK, three of them in London; Hackney, Wandsworth and Kings Cross. The aim of the tournament was to help enable Bridge the Gap to create more locations across the UK.
Combat2Coffee are a not-for-profit project that provides purposeful rehabilitation, veteran outreach and training to recovering veterans and their families. Additionally they provide a listening ear to anyone that might need it by focusing on those that are struggling with their mental health, and encouraging people to ‘open up over a coffee’.
After serving with the Army for 12 years and being medically retired from his subsequent career as a prison officer, 48-year-old Coffee2Combat founder Nigel Seaman, began suffering from depression, anxiety, and flashbacks from an incident experienced during his time on operations with the armed forces.
Combat2Coffee was then created as a way for Nigel to provide purposeful rehabilitation, veteran outreach, and a training course to recovering veterans and their families to give back to the support network that Nigel says, “saved his life”.
We know that mental health rates are high in construction and it is so important to raise mental health awareness, and we are here with Combat2Coffee to encourage everyone to speak up!
O’Neill & Brennan’s partnership with Buses4homeless resulted in a great success. One story in particular saw us helping a homeless man, Aaron Peck, who become employed at Multiplex One Nine Elms and consequently is able to move into his own rented accommodation.
Buses4homeless is a charity that has refurbished decommissioned double-decker buses into spaces for eating, sleeping, well-being, and learning to reintegrate homeless people back into the community. The work they are doing is truly wonderful. By helping the lives of so many homeless people get back on their feet, and offering a safe place for them to stay is helping to remove the barriers that stop these individuals from getting a job or getting accommodation.
O’Neill & Brennan have offered Buses4homeless funding, training, and employment solutions. We provide employment opportunities from our Logistics subcontractor business, and vacancies from our main contracting and housebuilding clients, to help provide employment and career opportunities.
Aaron undertook training through O’Neill & Brennan to be a Covid Marshall (O&B accredited COVID19 course) where he worked at a site in Kings Cross. He then undertook further training with O’Neill & Brennan and is now working as a Traffic Marshall at Multiplex One Nine Elms.
We were pleased to hold our second Social Value Football Tournament in partnership with Bridge the Gap which was a huge success.
Bridge the Gap aims to keep people off the streets and reduce knife crime, making a real difference to the communities. They create football communities for young men aged 18-30 helping to make friendships, develop leaders, and transform lives.
Our second event was held at Power League, White City, London and we were proud to be supported by our charity partner Combat2Coffee for the second year running. This year The Zen Project joined us with their Zen Bus. Their guided Zen Sessions, including meditation, visualisation, breathwrok, and sound therapy were enjoyed by all. Liberty Food Kitchen and A21 also supported our event, making it the success it was.
