Armed Forces Day 2020

Today (27 June) we celebrate National Armed Forces Day. In celebration of the men and women who make up the Armed Forces community – from serving troops to service families, veterans and cadets.

As all events and activities have temporarily been put on hold due current social distancing restrictions. We wanted to explore alternative ways to celebrate and bring people together virtually.

You may remember as part of our recent VE day celebrations, that we invited local school children to send in questions they would like to ask veterans on their wartime experiences.

We shared these with some of our ex-armed forces customers, who shared their memories in a short film. Hear about John Evans first job in the army as a Tank Radio Operator and how Tommy Shelvey was proud to take part in the guard of honour when the Queen married Prince Philip. You can view the short film here

Back in 2018 Onward signed the Armed Forces Covenant pledging our commitment to support serving personnel, reservists, veterans and military families, launching our customer offer last year.

We are now currently proud holders of the DERS Silver Award, which aims to demonstrate and advocate support for the armed forces community. So as part of this year’s Reserves Day celebrations we recently caught up with Onward’s Head of People to discuss how Onward is supporting ex-armed forces colleagues and reserves. Read more here

Main picture credit: Elvyra Lazauskaite, scheme manager at Friendship House in Liverpool.