The crews at the McDonald’s restaurants in Salisbury and Amesbury are making their presence felt in the local area by participating in a number of community projects, from litter picking to sponsoring a local youth football team.

Community engagement is an important part of the McDonald ethos – with cleaning up litter a particular priority. McDonald’s has been pro active in tackling litter for nearly 40 years, with teams from McDonald’s restaurants collecting litter since 1982, and each restaurant runs between two to three litter picking sessions a day - and that includes all litter dropped in the areas the restaurants serve. It is estimated that McDonald’s litter crew members cover a total of 3,000 miles a week on litter patrol.

Salisbury Journal:

If you weren’t already aware, but McDonald’s is run on a franchise basis, which means that different people run individual restaurants.

The Amesbury McDonald’s in owned by franchisee Sarah Lloyd, while franchisee Tony Bennett owns the restaurants in Winchester Street and Southampton Road in Salisbury.

Earlier this year Sarah’s 16-strong Amesbury team volunteered to help at the Amesbury Carnival, collecting all the litter. The litter picking team first followed the carnival procession, picking litter along the way, then helped clean up the carnival field.

Said Sarah: “I was really proud to see everyone come together and help tidy up such an important event in the local area.

“We had a great day while doing something beneficial for the community.

“It’s a key priority of ours to ensure that Amesbury remains an enjoyable place to live, work and visit, and it’s great to do our bit as a business to support this.”

Tony Bennett and his team have been committed to making a real difference in Salisbury since acquiring the Winchester Street restaurant in August, and opening the new Drive Thru  in Southampton Road in March.

The Southampton Road restaurant employ three members of staff whose job it is to keep the area surrounding the restaurant free of litter.

The restaurant team also recently visited the Salisbury 6th Form College to talk to a group of students about McDonald’s & franchising , recycling, working in the environment and food sourcing

Tony Bennett said : “We look forward to being able to find lots of projects in and around Salisbury to get our teeth into.”

“We are very excited to be starting a new partnership with Clarendon Juniors FC, based in Winterslow,” said Tony. “We have supplied the club with 14 football shirts for this season.

“We are also looking at a joint project with the 8th Salisbury Scout Group in a community garden that they have been working on.”