Cost of Living Appeal

Aim

As a local charity, Citizens Advice Cornwall needs your donation to be able to maintain and expand the service to meet growing demand.

The number of calls to Citizens Advice Cornwall by people in distress is increasing every month as the cost of living crisis bites. 

For millions of people in the UK, the cost-of-living crisis is putting them through a hell they never thought they’d experience.  

As food and energy costs rise at an alarming rate, families are struggling to make ends meet. It’s stressful, isolating and so very frightening. 

People are spiralling into debt, anxiety and ill health with every month that passes, not knowing a way out.  

At Citizens Advice Cornwall we can help guide people through this crisis. Our trained advisers give information and advice that empowers people to find a way forward and make ends meet.  We’re there to listen and ensure they’re not alone. 

But we’re a charity. And we can only do this with support.

Our staff and volunteers across the county are working flat out to help people, but there’s still many who find it difficult to get through to us. And we need to make sure they have somewhere to turn.

By donating to Citizens Advice today you could help provide a lifeline for someone and make sure an adviser can give them the support they need to find a way forward. 

Will you show someone in crisis they aren’t alone?

Last year we helped over 9,000 people in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly and we expect this number to keep growing. We helped to write-off debt worth a total of over £1 million and gain income worth over £8.1 million. 

For every £1 invested in Citizens Advice Cornwall we generated £2.35 in savings to public services amounting to £3.3 million.

We helped Joss (Name changed to protect identity), who was struggling on a very low income, claim a total of £8,745 in benefits back pay which she should have been entitled to.

“It has saved too many hours, days, months of anxiety to remember, and that feeling of helplessness and hopelessness.”

"I must say I never thought I had so many essential and fairly essential things to buy for myself (clothes / footwear) and the home until I had the money to buy some of them!  Without means, things just wear out / run out and never get replaced and now my debts are paid off. It was just in time as they were already spiralling out of control.  Honestly you are brilliant. Thank you so much..."

We help people like Ian (Name changed to protect identity), Ian was diagnosed with Cancer during the pandemic and had to stop working whilst he was undergoing treatment, this left his family with only one income and the additional cost of regular transport to the hospital almost an hours car drive away.  

Ian spoke to the Citizens Advice Cornwall Macmillan adviser who helped him to claim PIP and find out what other benefits he was entitled to. Ian Said: “to suddenly go from full time employment to sick pay put a huge strain on my family, especially when trying to manage getting to and from appointments with only one vehicle and children that needed to get to school. 

“It was hard enough going through the diagnosis and treatment without having to try and work out what support we could get to help us with everyday living. We hadn’t needed benefits before so it was all new to us. 

“Sally helped us work through it all and find what we were and weren’t entitled to, which saved us so much time and stress enabling us to focus on other things.” 

Your donation could help us to continue to support more people like Joss and Ian.

This project successfully funded on 28th September 2022