4 August 2020

Brookfield Properties’ Europe funds hospital food pop-up shops to support frontline workers

We are proud of Brookfield’s global efforts to affect positive change in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is one story in a series of blogs highlighting the various global campaigns and how they made a difference.

When London, England went into lockdown, the Brookfield Properties’ Europe team took immediate action to help those affected by the pandemic. As panic buying set in and shelves in grocery stores were emptied, many frontline hospital workers were left without the groceries they needed after their long shifts. To help solve the problem, the non-profit Help NHS Heroes  set up click-and-collect food box pickup points on hospital grounds where frontline workers could take home boxes full of ingredients for well-balanced meals and other necessities.

Brookfield Properties’ Europe partnered with Help NHS Heroes by donating £148,000 to fund the infrastructure for the pop-up shops on the grounds of Charing Cross, Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea, Hammersmith, St Mary’s, and the Western Eye hospitals.

“Help NHS Heroes was really special because we were able to do a lot of good for the hospital workers from day one, and I was pretty proud of our company because we were able to get up and running very quickly,” said Caitlin Warfield, Marketing Director for Brookfield Properties’ Europe.

Brookfield Properties’ Europe didn’t stop there, they connected the dots between some very important charity partners to make the impact even greater.

Fat Macy’s, a charity partner of Brookfield Properties’ Europe, supports young Londoners out of homelessness through upskilling and training. The charity provides catering services as part of their program, using it to help fund the organization. As COVID-19 dramatically impacted their operations, Fat Macy’s pivoted quickly to sell food hampers and home food deliveries to keep their doors open.  Brookfield Properties’ Europe engaged Fat Macy’s and connected their cause with the Help NHS Heroes food boxes. Brookfield Properties’ Europe supported their facility costs; a donation of £10,000.

“Fat Macy’s have been fantastic to work with. They’ve shown their resilience and their ability to adapt day-to-day. It’s super impressive that within a week of the lockdown, they found a way to pivot their organizational model and contribute in a different way,” said Sarah-Paige Banner, Marketing Coordinator with Brookfield Properties’ Europe.

The last component of Brookfield Properties’ Europe’s A Cause for Caring campaign was working with ELHAP, another established charity partner. ELHAP provides adventure play opportunities to disabled and disadvantaged children, young people and adults.

Brookfield Properties’ Europe donated £10,000 to help ELHAP launch an emergency support service called “ELHAP Connects.” ELHAP helps users re-connect with important and familiar people and places at ELHAP through video to encourage them to be creative and stay active. In the first week alone, the videos had over 1,000 views in 56 hours of viewing time.

“The feedback from families using ELHAP Connects has been so positive; parents have said that their children ‘come alive’ when seeing the videos,” said Sarah-Paige.

“We wanted to partner with service providers who already had relationships and knew how to set up exactly what was needed. At the same time, we thought we really should be working with a charity that is doing something specifically around COVID-19, which is how we came to support Help NHS Heroes,” said Caitlin.

In total, Brookfield Properties’ London has donated £168,775 to various charities to provide COVID-19 relief support this year so far. Caitlin and Sarah-Paige both expressed how heartwarming and inspiring it was to work on these campaigns, and see A Cause for Caring campaigns rolled out around the world.

“It’s fantastic to connect the dots and make a combined effort, while also having the flexibility to orchestrate local campaigns to have a specialized impact in the communities where we operate,” said Caitlin.

Read more Brookfield A Cause for Caring stories here