Our friends and neighbours at Optimising IT have announced they are extending their charity partnership with Gloucestershire Young Carers for a further year. News which we are thrilled to hear after such a fantastic 12 months working together.

Since the partnership launched in July 2022, the team at Optimising IT have helped raise more than £6000 to help support our work with and for young carers in the county.

The team have undertaken a variety of activities to fundraise for GYC and promote the work of the charity across Gloucestershire over the last 12 months. Activities have included an intrepid team of 5 colleagues bravely skydiving from 13,000ft, a sold-out quiz night with 30 businesses attending from across the county and lots of exciting opportunities for young carers to enjoy matches at Cheltenham Town Football Club as part of their sponsorship of the local club. One young carer who attended a match and got to meet and interview players said, “it was the best day of my life!”

As well as supporting the charity financially, colleagues have volunteered by attending young carer events such as our careers event YAC Futures for young adult carers, where they inspired the next generation about a future in IT if they so choose. Chairman Geoff Smith also attended our important London School of Economics event to find out “What works for Young Carers”.

Commenting on the extension of the partnership with GYC, Managing Director of Optimising IT Todd Gifford said “We’re delighted to support Gloucestershire Young Carers as our charity of the year for a second year. The work GYC do to support local young people is inspirational and we’re proud to be a small part of that. The Optimising IT team have enjoyed taking part in fundraising activities over this last year and we are excited to plan more activities for the coming year. It’s an exciting time to be working with the GYC team as they enter their 30^th year and look towards supporting the young people of Gloucestershire for the next 30.”

Ele Semadeni, Operations Manager at GYC expressed her sincere gratitude to the team “As we mark the first year of our partnership, I want to thank everyone at Optimising IT for their fundraising and awareness raising efforts which will have a long-lasting impact on our services and those who need our support.

“I am delighted our partnership has been extended for a further year, until July 2024, so we can build on our work together as we enter our 30^th Anniversary celebrations in September. We can’t wait to see what we will achieve together in the next 12 months.”