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Home Media Centre Press Releases 2011

NRAM employees help paint a brighter future for Sunderland Samaritans

31 Jan 2011

View the full press release [PDF size 169KB].

Staff from Northern Rock Asset Management (NRAM) spent the last week volunteering for Sunderland Samaritans by renovating their branch.

A total of 36 staff at the mortgage provider, which has offices at Doxford Business Park, swapped their computers for paintbrushes in an effort to completely redecorate the training, meeting, and operations rooms of the branch based on Stockton Road in Sunderland.

Samaritans offers round-the-clock confidential support by phone, email, letter and face-to-face for people anyone feeling down, unhappy, anxious or stressed.

After 30 years at its premises, Sunderland Samaritans hasn’t had the funds or resource to redecorate the branch until now.

Nigel Charlesworth, spokesman for NRAM said:“Our staff had a fantastic time renovating Sunderland Samaritans. The charity offers a truly unique service to people in the local community and it is reassuring to know that they are on hand 24:7 should anyone need their support. This project allowed us to help using the skills that we already have and give something back.”

Allan Monkhouse, Director of Sunderland Samaritans said: “I would like to say a huge thank you to all the NRAM staff who worked so hard, without their help, we would have really struggled to get the branch redecorated. The entire building has been given a complete facelift and so many of our volunteers have commented on what a huge difference it has made.

“We have of volunteering opportunities like this at our branch, if you would like to find out more please call 0191 514 3296."

-ENDS-

Media contacts:

Claire Duncan , Samaritans – 020 8394 8345 or email c.duncan@samaritans.org
Nigel Charlesworth, NRAM – 0796 490 0861or email nigel.charlesworth@ukar.co.uk

Notes to Editors:

For people experiencing emotional distress and struggling to cope, our volunteers are there 24/7 to offer confidential, non-judgmental support to anyone experiencing emotional distress and suicidal feelings, by phone: 08457 90 90 90 (ROI) 1850 60 9090, email: jo@samaritans.org, or face-to-face: visit www.samaritans.org for details of your local branch.

About Northern Rock Asset Management (NRAM)

Northern Rock (Asset Management) plc is a mortgage provider that holds residential mortgages and unsecured loans.

Northern Rock was nationalised and taken into Government ownership in February 2008 and was then restructured into two legal entities on 31 December 2009 – Northern Rock plc and Northern Rock (Asset Management) plc (NRAM).

NRAM retained the majority of the pre-existing mortgage book and all pre-existing unsecured loan accounts. NRAM is permanently closed to new lending, but continues to provide services to some 600,000 existing borrowers. The management and control of NRAM was integrated with Bradford & Bingley under UK Asset Resolution (UKAR) on 1 October 2010.

More information is available at www.n-ram.co.uk and www.ukar.co.uk

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