At a joint meeting, Helena Gareis from the Children's and Family Hospice Service and Sascha Gawlitzek and Stefanie Schultz from Neuroaktiv provided an insight into their work and how the donations are used. ‘As we have no funding body, we rely on donations to finance our work,’ explained Helena Garais. According to Garais, the task of the team, which consists of four employees and over forty volunteers, is to provide support and assistance to children, young people and their families in difficult situations. A new addition is the project ‘Taking a heavy burden off little shoulders’. This project offers early help and support to children who suddenly find themselves in a life crisis. The aim of this preventive work is to catch the children before any problems arise, even if the outcome of the illness is still uncertain.

The second donation recipient, the non-profit company Neuroaktiv, is also based in Offenburg and provides its services to the entire Ortenau district. ‘We are an outpatient therapy centre for stroke patients and patients with neurological diseases,’ says Sascha Gawlitzek, describing the work of the non-profit limited liability company.  ‘We want to achieve the greatest possible success for the benefit of our patients with holistic therapy concepts.’ Modern therapy equipment is largely financed by donations. ‘We will use the donation to purchase a mirror therapy device. We have already achieved some success with patients using the device, which we had available on a trial basis,’ Gawlitzek continues.

‘We have been supporting social projects with a donation at the end of each year for many years. We are always impressed by the commitment and diversity of the various institutions,’ emphasises Managing Director Rolf Anti, ‘we are glad that we can at least provide a little financial support for this important work.’ The Offenburg-based company, whose customers are largely located in promising markets such as renewable energies, will generate sales of 125 million euros this year with its approximately 470 employees. ‘Given the economic situation in Germany, we can be very satisfied with the financial year,’ sums up Marco Geiler, Commercial Managing Director, "but in order to achieve our goals and continue to grow in the coming year, we urgently need additional skilled workers. After all, we want to be able to continue supporting social institutions and projects in the future.