Tesco is getting ready to welcome customers to the opening of a new Express store in Beckenham next week.
The Chinese Garage store on Wickham Road store will open its doors on 1 February and in addition to providing 19 new jobs, it brings with it food bank donations and Tesco’s Bags of Help funding opportunities for local good causes.
Tofiqul Islam, the store’s manager, said that supporting the community’s residents will be hugely important to store staff in the coming years.
He added: “We’re extremely excited to be opening our Chinese Garage Tesco Express store and helping to serve the community during these challenging times.
“We are investing in the community by employing and training local people, and it’ll be a pleasure to see them develop and improve.
“Our colleagues come from a wide variety of backgrounds, with many finding stable positions hard to find or have sought career changes because of the pandemic. We are excited to welcome so much new talent and experience into our Tesco Team.
“We will of course also promote Tesco’s Bags of Help scheme, with the aim of donating thousands of pounds for local good causes that can help the community to flourish.”
Local groups are invited to apply for community funding through Bags of Help, Tesco’s blue token voting scheme which sees three local projects voted on by customers in store every three months, with first place awarded £2,000, second place £1,000 and third place £500. To date Bags of Help has provided £6.1million to 2,622 projects across London since 2016, with over £45,000 provided directly to groups in Beckenham including Rangefield Primary School who received £1,000 in 2019 to paint running tracks in the playground to encourage the children to have a healthy lifestyle.
Although voting is currently not taking place due to the pandemic, organisations can still apply for grants: www.tesco.com/bagsofhelp.
With England currently under lockdown restrictions during the pandemic, Tofiqul stressed that safety at the store will be of the highest importance.
