In July 2009, the first year graduates from Cadbury UK completed a 2 day community project with Ysgol Clywedog School in Wrexham, near Chirk. The first day of the project was spent transforming a waste area into a communal garden. On the second day the graduates worked in conjunction with Young Enterprise to deliver a business workshop to 150 pupils from year 10.
The project took 4 months to plan, and each graduate worked in one of three teams; logistics, charity or fundraising. The graduates raised over £2500 through fundraising and the Cadbury cash match scheme, and this money was used to pay for gardening equipment and the business workshop. Fundraising activities included a ‘giant creme egg contest’, and ‘the bean to bar ride’, in which Colin Baird cycled over 200 miles.
The transformation of the waste area into a communal garden was a great success. Gareth Lewis, deputy head, said the graduates ‘should be commended for their enthusiasm, commitment and sheer hard physical labour. For some this was obviously a change in the type of work they were used to as they wielded picks, forks and spades to cleat the land of rubbish and rocks before creating a beautiful garden.’
The graduates had to work together on the second day to effectively organise the 150 pupils into groups for the business workshop. The choice of business activities and motivational skills of the graduates meant that all the pupils enjoyed the day and were able to learn the key aspects of bringing a product from concept to market. For one of the activities the pupils had to transform a red brick into a marketable product. Ideas ranged from ‘man-soap’ to ‘chocolate pizza’, and each group presented their idea to the rest of the year in the form of a television or radio advert.
‘There were some tricky times getting the project up and running, but we all learnt a lot and definitely improved our ability to work together as a team. At the end of it all we know a lot more about each other as a graduate group and most importantly we organised two really worthwhile days with a school in a local Cadbury community.’ (Graeme Smeaton, Sales and Marketing)
