Workers at a Huddersfield chemicals firm opened their doors to neighbouring community groups and showered them with Christmas good cheer.

Syngenta in Leeds Road hosted its fourth annual Connecting Communities event which seeks to match up employees with local good causes.

The company and its employees run a Community Gift scheme, a cash fund of £15,000 for local community and voluntary groups.

Workers make donations from their salary on a regular basis and the fund is topped up by the company.

Employees at the firm also collected ‘secret Santa’ toys to give to local children and held a food collection for the Welcome Centre food bank in Huddersfield.

The Sygenta Christmas tree lights are switched on by Chemical Development Technician Martin England (right) with apprentice Daniel Barker.

Syngenta’s Susan Walsh, who helped organise the event, said: “Each year our Connecting Communities event is getting more and more popular.

“This year we had over 60 people representing 13 community groups and we are trying to match financial and volunteer support for local groups through grants from the Employees Community Gift scheme.”

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Music was performed by the Netherhall Learning Campus Steel Band and a Caribbean lunch was laid on by the company.

One Good Turn, Hollybank Trust and Yetton Together were among the visiting groups.

One of the representatives Howard Belafonte, of Deighton Carnival, said: “There are so many good causes in the area. It’s encouraging to see that a company like Syngenta is willing to put on such an event where its workers can learn more about the work of community groups.”

As part of its Employees Community Gift scheme, staff at the firm get paid time off for volunteering and bids are made to the fund to release cash.

Community groups who want to find out more can e-mail contact.huddersfield@syngenta.com.