Hello, my name is Olivia Clinton, and I am here at Southern Co-op’s head office alongside my peers, Emma and Lexie for work experience as part of my T Level course with HSDC.

On Wednesday 23 November, I spoke to Holly Bramble, the Community Lead at Southern Co-op, to find out a bit about herself personally and a deeper understanding of her role and what she does.

Holly has impressively been in the business for 10 years. This all started from her being a Team Leader in a co-operative retail shop for a year, moving her on to the Membership and Customer Service Team for roughly four to five years. Holly was then given the opportunity to do a secondment, which led her to work her way up to where she is currently.

Holly mentioned that her role is varied, and no two days are the same meaning she is always learning something new. She focuses on supporting her colleagues in retail and end of life services to deliver Southern Co-op’s community program, ‘Love Your Neighbourhood’. These include the key themes – greener, safer, healthier and more inclusive. This involves Holly ensuring all those aspects are right for the business, colleagues and communities and that they’ve been delivered in the right way and in the best way possible. Holly said: “Our colleagues are the heart of what we do, they are the heart of our community.”

As well as this, Holly also supports Gemma, Southern Co-op’s Director for Sustainability and Communications, on the strategic side of things. This links back to the key themes. For example, within the concept of ‘safer’, Southern Co-op has recently launched a Safer Neighbourhood Fund. There is £120,000 available to support 15 different groups, to help tackle crime.

There is then the ‘greener’ aspect as they are supporting Wildlife Trusts in Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Sussex, Dorset, Devon, Somerset, and there has been a recent relationship started with Cheshire. The business has been a member of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust for 13 years which has included donations to help fund land purchases. In Dorset the Wildlife Trust helps people with mental and / or physical health problems to get prescribed time outdoors. In Sussex Southern Co-op is discussing with the Wildlife Trust its Wilder Churches programme.

Within the aspect of ‘healthier’, there has been support for 10 community fridges and three Your Local Pantries. The idea is that it helps prevent food waste and is open to all members of the community. It’s a ‘shop’ and the stock come from allotment harvests and local store donations. People then become members and can collect 10 – 15 items for a reasonable price. Holly implied that it’s about bringing a community together rather than focusing on poverty.

To conclude, Holly added that for her personally it’s more of the little things that matter the most. It is being able to help the people that need it the most and to see the end achievements making a difference. She said: “It is a feeling of pride within the colleagues and everyone helping each other.”