Shrewsbury-based creative agency, Clear, invited clients and charities to help celebrate their 16th birthday and wrap up #ClearGiveBack – a series of 15 Random Acts of Kindness (RaoK) completed during the company’s 15th year in business.

Gavin Mills, Managing Director said: “In March 2017, we turned 15. To celebrate, we decided to give something back to the community because, without them, the last 15 years wouldn’t have been possible. We aimed to do 15 acts of kindness over the year to support local people and organisations.

“We wanted to wrap up the year by showing clients and the charities involved what we’ve been up to, and we also held a charity raffle that raised £900 for The Shropshire Disability Network – our final random act of kindness.”

Speaking on the night, Zoe Ashbridge, Account Manager and co-ordinator of the project, said: “Over 200 hours of time was put into the project – much more in reality to organise everything. 30 charities benefitted, we met 181 new people during the course of the year, and we made a total of almost £6,940 in charitable donations – not including the value of items we donated and the money raised from the raffle. It was really special to be involved in the project, and we hope we have done some good for our community.”

Over 70 people came to the party, where there were drinks, food, and even an ‘on-brand’ totally blue bartender to serve the guests. Shropshire Disability attended and Ruby Hartshorn, Chair, said a few words: “We’ve been working with Clear since 2008, and we want to thank them for choosing us as a charity for this event. Often, we are unable to hold our own events, so we rely on donations from others, every penny really counts.”

When asked about how they chose their RaoK, Gavin Mills said “We have tried to complete a wide range of charitable acts, from donating food to animal rescue centres, to cooking for the homeless. There was also an environmental RaoK, as well as something for the parents of children at the local hospital.

“We used our skills base to create websites and offer free training to upskill charities, as we knew they would really benefit from this to their running keep costs down. Where possible, the projects were personal to our staff too. We regularly got together and decided, as a team, what we thought would be a great idea, but also something we were passionate about.”