Buckinghamshire-based Mabrouka Events, an AIEA member, is working with the Felix Project on an initiative to encourage suppliers to support charities with food from hotels and restaurants.
The agency is a family-run business, with the directors consisting of a mother and two twin sisters. Layla Warfield, director and account manager, talks to M&IT about their charity work and celebrating 20 years in the business.
We are working with the Felix Project
They work specifically in London, delivering surplus food from supermarkets and hotels to emergency hotspots and charities in London. We get so many gifts – huge hampers which we wanted to donate to the charity.
I wondered if anyone was making the connection with other hoteliers and restaurant groups as we have a huge network of connections. I started to send messages on LinkedIn to contacts and they’ve all been amazing and said yes we want to help.
We’ve just had the £10,000 government grant paid into our account, which was amazing
We share a beautiful converted barn with a design company and they sent us the link to apply for the grant with our local authority. It was super easy to fill in and I cannot believe it was paid two weeks later. Really impressed with the whole process. That will really help.
We’ve furloughed one of the team who was an employee, an apprentice and the rest of the team were part-time and self-employed.
We had a lot of events that were due to take place in April, May and June
We had a big conference at Center Parcs, Woburn in June for a pharmaceutical client. That was for 100 people for three days. The venue has said we could move that to September, October, November or even January next year. But our client is hedging their bets and watching the government advice. I don’t think it will happen in September, it’s more likely in October or November.
What keeps me awake at night is the uncertainty
Not knowing an endpoint and when the enquiries will start coming back.
I was working as a PA in the pharmaceutical industry and I left to have my first son
Instead of going back to work for them, I joined my mum and twin sister full time at Mabrouka Events. Our core client base is pharmaceuticals although we are looking to grow our business and do more private events. They are really good fun.
We will be celebrating 20 years in 2021
We hope things will return to normal once this pandemic comes under control.
