During November and December of 2011 for every Christmas Lunch sandwich or Hansel (Pret's Gingerbread Snowman) you enjoyed, Pret donated 25p to the Pret Foundation Trust. We're delighted to tell you that we raised a whopping £158,719. So here's a big thank you to all our Little Helpers (that's you) we really couldn't have done it without you.

Homelessness is a really important issue to Pret and one that we hope to help tackle with the money raised this Christmas. The donations have already gone into the Pret Foundation Trust and over the coming months will be used towards helping us in three key areas:



We will continue to support a myriad of homeless projects across the UK this year. Some charities we've worked with for many years and some we're delighted to be working with for the first time. Your donations will fund one-off projects ranging from providing hot meals, to furnishing shelters and paying salaries. They will be allocated in March of this year and we will keep you updated on those projects we are helping. Until then, here's an example of some of the charities we worked with in 2011...

	Shelter from the Storm This charity based in Islington, London provides hot meals and a warm bed to homeless people and is run entirely by volunteers. Find out more			999 Club The 999 Club provides hot food & drinks, washing facilities and warm clothes to the homeless in Deptford and Bromley. Find out more
	Clock Tower, Brighton The Clock Tower Sanctuary provides drop-in information, advice and support for young people aged 16-25 who are homeless or insecurely housed. Find out more			Cornerstone, Manchester This day centre in Salford provides services to vulnerable and disadvantaged adults. They help people facing a wide range of social issues including homelessness. Find out more
	Glasgow City Mission The world’s first City Mission. Founded in 1826, they fight against poverty and disadvantage in Glasgow. Find out more			The Tab Centre The Tab Centre in Shoreditch run a portfolio of projects that endeavour to look at poverty and discrimination in a new way. Find out more

You may already know that Pret donates it's unsold food at the end of the day to homeless charities and shelters via the Pret Charity Run. Whilst many charities collect their sandwiches from our shops we also have a small fleet of vans that help to deliver them. This year some of the Christmas donations will go towards a shiny new delivery van (eco-friendly of course) to run our new late night Charity Run. The van will go round London in the middle of the night (3-4 am) collecting unsold food from our really late closing shops (there's quite a few around London). This means we'll have well over 200 shops that now donate their leftovers.

In 2008 we launched the Simon Hargraves Apprenticeship Scheme as a means of giving homeless people and ex-offenders an opportunity into work and provide a means to break the vicious cycle of unemployment they often face. Since then the training scheme has gone from strength to strength and in 2011 we put 58 new Apprentices through it. But that's not enough...So in 2012 we intend to take on 70 new Apprentices. Each Apprentice costs Pret about £3,500 to train (including help with travel and clothing) and so a sizeable chunk of your Christmas donations will go towards helping real people into real jobs.