Schäflein trainees show social commitment

Around the turn of the year, almost 50 trainees from the Schäflein Group took the opportunity to get socially involved and take on responsibility. They supported social organisations and projects in the region with various charitable activities.

“We were allowed to decide for ourselves which organisations we wanted to help and how we wanted to get involved,” says Sarah Pöhlmann, a trainee office administrator. Her group decided to write Christmas letters to various senior centres. With over 100 handwritten and personalised texts, they got the residents in the mood for Christmas.

“For us, training means developing young people’s personalities as well as their professional expertise. This includes making the value of personal initiative and social commitment tangible,” emphasises Christoph Heller, CEO of the Schäflein Group.

A wide range of projects were supported

There were no limits to creativity when choosing the project. For example, three groups put their baking and crafting skills to the test and surprised the AWO senior citizens’ centre in Schwebheim with home-baked cakes and handmade Christmas and Easter decorations and the Marienthal children’s home with home-baked biscuits. Others collected donations, for example with the help of an in-house Christmas tree sale. The proceeds and donations from the campaigns went to the curative education day centre at the Sozialdienst katholischer Frauen Würzburg, the Schwebheim animal shelter and the Maria Schutz youth welfare centre in Grafenrheinfeld.

And as presents are particularly popular with children at Christmas, gift-giving campaigns were also a must. With the support of the Schäflein workforce, 50 Christmas presents were handed over to the Maria Schutz youth welfare centre. The Schäflein trainees also collected a total of 400 parcels for the Johanniter Christmas truckers, who distributed them to people in need in south-east Europe. As varied and diverse as the activities were, the tenor was the same: “It was a lot of fun to bring joy to so many people at this difficult time,” the trainees agreed.