Without a doubt, one of the most rewarding activities we have carried out this past year took place in Barcelona. A fun and interesting Corporate Social Responsibility activity for all three parties; donors, organisers and recipients.

We travelled from the south of Spain to the Catalan capital to make the wishes of a well-known pharmaceutical company come true: to help children in need.

There were several pallets of goods to be donated, so when we saw the preparations and the amount of material we started to get nervous.

We arrived at the hotel where the briefing was to take place. After unloading the material and setting it up in the room, we experienced a reaction that we hadn’t considered before: the wow factor.

Without a doubt, the fact that the room was full of material to be donated and that the activity was a surprise would wow the attendees in a way that would be hard to forget. We were not wrong.

None of the participants had a clue what was going to happen, so when we talked about it in the briefing, the faces of more than one of the participants were quite a sight; so you can’t even imagine what it was like when they entered the room.

On one side of the room all the school supplies were set out, which the participants had to wrap and prepare for their respective recipients. On the other side, there were different products to make snack packs.

Each school kit included:

• Pen
• Pencil sharpener
• A4 pad
• Rubber
• Coloured pencils

On the other hand, the snack packs included:

• Puleva milkshake
• Bifrutas juice
• Cereal bar
• Nocilla stick
• Bag of nuts

Once the instructions had been given, the staff were prepared and the assistants were ready, the charity work began and the aforementioned packages and kits were prepared.

After an hour and a half of packaging, one of the highlights of this activity took place: the human chain.

This human chain ran through the entire hotel, where our one hundred participants efficiently and commendably helped to load the parcels into the Red Cross van.

Two hours of charitable fun, a vital experience that they will remember forever and 1000 much-needed packages that children will have received throughout Catalonia.

That’s how it’s done!