Something to write home about: HotelCo 51 kicks off its A Good Thing donations with a donation to a City Life Church Southampton project

In July 2024 HotelCo 51 became A Good Thing’s second-ever enterprise-level supporter: the hotel group joined our platform with 17 of its locations across the UK. The firm describes itself as striving to “put people and the planet first”, and asserts it is always looking for “new opportunities to deliver sustainable hospitality with purpose”. Not hard to see why we felt HotelCo 51 would be a great match with us here at A Good Thing!

Lost property loved again

As soon as the firm had signed up, Colm Feeley, Regional Director of Marketing for HotelCo 51 in the UK, began thinking hard about how the 17 locations could donate items via the platform. And Moxy Southampton was where it all kicked off for HotelCo 51: Charlotte O’Connell, Moxy’s ‘Cluster Captain’, had been looking through the hotel’s lost property and knew there were some great potential donations just sitting there:

“There were coats, scarves, bags, phones… it just piles up. It had sat there for months on end.”

Charlotte regularly has phones and other devices that guests leave behind, and do not claim:

“The phones had been in the hotel for at least two years. We always try to keep anything of value, we try to get it back to its owner, but on many occasions this is just not possible. Giving them away is better than them sitting in our safe and not doing much.

Moxy Southampton also ended up with two boxes of pencils that were not needed, and which were donated via A Good Thing:

“They had been ordered as part of our grand opening: lots of stuff tends to be given to us by the ‘opening team’, but pencils are just not something we use. We use pens, but not pencils. These had sat in a cupboard for five years, doing nothing. It was helpful for us to give them away, and we have freed up some space. It was nice to be able to give them to someone who will use them, rather than them going to landfill or just sitting there.”

Perfect pencils and phones popped up

Pete White from nearby City Life Church Southampton was excited when he saw Moxy’s donations popping up on the A Good Thing platform. Pete is the CLEAR (City Life Education and Action for Refugees) Project Manager for the charity. CLEAR has been a project of the church since 2001, when Southampton became a dispersal city for asylum seekers and refugees. For more than 20 years, CLEAR has supported people through the asylum-seeking process and helped them rebuild their lives in the UK, as Pete explains:

“CLEAR is a way to support people placed in the city. We offer advice around immigration, housing, benefits, English classes... We also offer IT courses and enrichment events with arts groups and theatres. We try hard to help people integrate into society. We help around 900 advice clients each year, and around 200 people attend our English classes.”

Pete was delighted when he was matched with Moxy Southampton for the two boxes of pencils and the five smartphones:

“This was my first successful match via A Good Thing! I couldn’t believe it when I saw the listing: these were things we needed… and they were so nearby!”

Pete explains why the items will be so useful:

“We run English classes, so there is lots of reading and writing: pencils will be brilliant for these classes. And the phones will be given to some of the people we support: asylum seekers often have their phones taken away, which means they can’t contact people back home. We work with another charity to refurbish phones before we give them to refugees: we charge them up and do a hard reset.”

Super easy to collect 

Collecting the items from the hotel could not have been easier for Pete:

Pete collecting the donation from the hotel that is just around the corner!

“I literally travelled half a mile: I popped across the park on my bike to collect the things from Moxy. The process was so quick and easy online. It was the first time I had done it: the messages came through fast, I responded, and it all worked really easily. I arranged to collect the things on the Monday, and the duty manager was there to meet me and hand it all over. We even had time to take a cheery photo!”

Pete used the opportunity to chat to the duty manager at the hotel and ask what else might be available to be donated:

“I told them we’d love to look at what else they had. Lost property, for example. We could really make use of clothing or jackets in good condition.”

Praise and preparations 

Pete appreciates what A Good Thing is doing, and knows its role is much-needed:

“I used to work in the corporate world myself, and I was responsible for a CSR [corporate social responsibility] budget: sometimes it was actually hard to spend the money, I just didn’t know what was out there, and it was hard to find charities that we wanted to support.”

Charlotte O’Connell from Moxy was equally positive about using A Good Thing, and of course it was her first time too:

“The ease of the website and uploading it all, everything was very simple. In hotels we don’t tend to have the time to take things places and drop them off. This is just really easy! It was really smooth, easy to use. I had no issues, it’s actually a surprise that something like this has not come about sooner!”

Charlotte and her team in Southampton have even begun thinking about what they might donate next:

“We have lots of crockery and glassware to give away, things we don’t use any more. We have bowls we’ve upgraded. These will be my next donations, I’d love to create space and give them to someone who can use them.”

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