Cost Of Living Emergency Fund has provided £2,000 of match funding
Christmas Joy Campaign 2023
Dorset, United Kingdom
Aim
Bridport Round Table are raising money to help our community through the cost-of-living crisis
Over the past three years, we have run successful campaigns to help the local community through both Covid and the Cost of Living Crisis.
The response from the community has been overwhelming. With your help we have raised over £32,000 in total. This money has had a huge impact on the local community:
- Working with our friends at St Mary’s Church, we have made and delivered almost 400 hampers to families in the local area
- Last past year, we distributed vouchers to hundreds of families to support them through the February half-term and Easter school holidays, allowing them to pay for fresh meat, fruit and vegetables from local providers
- We have made large cash donations to funds supporting local families through the crisis
- This Summer, we worked with Morrisons to pay for, make up and distribute hampers to over a hundred local families during the school holidays
The feedback we have had is uniformly positive, with many families declaring it a lifeline, and something that they just cannot get by without.
Therefore we want to keep providing this help, and to do this we need your help again...
As a minimum, we are again looking to raise enough money to distribute 170 Christmas Hampers to families in need in the Bridport and Beaminster area.
As before, these will not be emergency food parcels – our friends at Cupboard Love and Beaminster food bank will continue to supply these to those who need them.
Rather, our Christmas Hampers are intended to ensure that every family that received one has all the necessary ingredients to enjoy a traditional family Christmas.
The Hampers will contain enough food for a full Christmas dinner and more for a family of four: they will contain a Turkey, and all the trimmings, all fresh and locally sourced; they will contain cheese, biscuits and chutney; Christmas pudding, and yule log. Finally, they will also contain enough sweets and chocolates to comfortably last the Christmas period!
For those families who receive a Hamper, this will mean one less thing to worry about. But like last year, we want to do more!
Our campaign will also look to raise money to fund more support for people through the cost-of-living crisis this winter and into the new year. This will include:
- Donating money to local spaces setting themselves up as warm spaces this winter, for local people to congregate in knowing that that the heating will be on, and a cup of tea available
- Providing food vouchers to vulnerable families over the school holidays, all from local butchers and greengrocers
- Providing a dedicated pot of money for emergency requests from either local people who need help, or for community workers to access should they spot signs of distress
We know last year was a huge success, fuelled by the enthusiasm local people and businesses had for the cause. Whilst it may not be possible to match the £22k raised last year, we want to shoot again for a high number - every penny counts, and will be spent helping local people get through these hard times!
With that in mind our target for this year is to raise £10,000, which would give us enough to make and deliver all 170 hampers, AND have enough money to make a meaningful impact to the community over the next year.
This sounds an awful lot to raise, but we are hoping again that Crowdfunder will be able to help us by connecting us to their match funding partners, amplifying every donation you make by adding corporate funds to the pot. This had an absolutely phenomenal impact last year, and if our application is successful will bring in significant levels of new money into the town to help us
Add this to our ability to obtain gift aid from the government, and we are again incredibly well placed to meet are target.
So please be as generous as you can, and help us get as much money as possible into the town and the surrounding areas to help those who need it most.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. At this really difficult time we know that those who can help, will help.
This is a special area, with people who have gone above and beyond over the past months and years to support their friends and neighbours when they have needed it the most.
Your donation will help us continue that great work.
This project successfully funded on 9th January 2024