A Rewarding Partnership

April marks the end of a rewarding two-year charity partnership with The Charlie Waller Trust, one of the UK’s most respected mental health charities. 

They provide mental health training and resources with a focus on children and young people. They equip parents, carers, teachers and communities with the best and latest evidence-based strategies and give them the knowledge and confidence to help young people thrive. 

Here, members of the CV Villas charity team tell us more about the partnership, which has raised £18,122. 

The Charlie Waller Trust was nominated by Product Manager Carolina de Capell Brooke. She explains: “My personal links to the charity go back many years – close friends of my family are involved with the charity."

"More recently, many colleagues had friends with children who had struggled during or after Covid, so would appreciate the great work of the Trust.” 

Each member of the charity team provided a pitch on their chosen charity to staff, and the Charlie Waller Trust was selected as the winner. 

Over the last two years, CV staff have got involved with many of the Trust’s events, including the art exhibition in London, the South Downs Walk for Wellbeing and the London Carol Service, both as volunteers and participants. 

CV also gifted auction prizes of a villa in Corfu for two of our events. 

In terms of our own fundraising, we held charity lunches, a ‘thirsty Thursday cocktail hour’, a 10km ‘Walk the Bridges’ event, plus a Mental Health Awareness week at their London office with various activities taking place each day, including board games, walks, bake sales and learning sessions.

Memorable events

Carolina and Senior Product Manager Jack Organ describe what their most memorable fundraising event was. Carolina chose two: “The Walk the Bridges event was an opportunity for almost everyone in the office to take part and to discover corners of London that they were not familiar with. The art exhibition was an excellent way to promote a huge selection of artists and raise funds for the charity in a beautiful setting.” For Jack, it was an event further from home: “A team from CV Villas ran the Kassios Dias Trail Run, a challenging mountain trail run in the Corfu hills. This was certainly very memorable for me personally, given the pain my legs were in the next few days!”

Local connections

Head of Marketing Ben Briggs took on a year of challenges during 2024, aiming for one running event per month. He says: “It was an honour to represent the Trust and hopefully raise further awareness. As someone who grew up in Newbury, it was also great to support a charity with local connections.”

Breaking down challenges

As part of the partnership, the Trust has provided training and resources to the business. Jack explains: “We’ve had a number of guest speakers and hosted in-person and online seminars through the Trust. This has created great awareness about the topic of mental health throughout our team and acted not only as an educational piece, but as a conversation starter breaking down some of the challenges we face about discussing such topics in the workplace.” He adds: “Although I don’t have children, the work of the Trust is relatable to everyone on various levels and it has been great to hear more from the youth ambassadors about the impact on them, alongside how they are now helping others.” Ben says: “I agree with Jack and having a teenager myself, working with the Trust for the last two years, has certainly opened my eyes to the challenges we all face.

An amazing partnership

The partnership has been incredibly rewarding for everyone involved. Jack says: “The Charlie Waller team have been so professional and pro-active in ensuring we were aware of all the amazing work they do and have engaged with us on various ideas to help fundraise ourselves. “We’ve had an amazing two-year partnership with the Charlie Waller Trust, and without doubt would recommend the Trust to other businesses.” To find out more, visit Charlie Waller.