Donate the Rebate

Aim

We want to help local people who are struggling with the rise in the cost of living by encouraging others to donate their energy rebate

CITIZENS ADVICE EAST HERTS – DONATE THE REBATE!

WHO WE ARE 

We are a team of local people, a mixture of paid staff and dedicated volunteers and we are here to help any one who needs it with free, confidential and impartial advice.   When people in need get in touch, they speak to one of our highly trained,  volunteers who can take them through their options and offer them a way forwards to help themselves.  We even provide home visits and face to face appointments for people who need extra support.  The quality of our advice is high and we have a team of paid supervisors to support our amazing volunteers.  We have specialist  advisers as well as a money advice team who are paid members of staff who offer more in-depth support.   Last year we helped almost 6000 people with over 14400 issues.  We were able to help them gain a massive £6.1 million in income through benefits, debts written off and consumer problems resolved.  

WHY NOW? 

Right now, Britain is facing its biggest cost of living crisis in decades.  Here at Citizens Advice East Herts, we have seen more people coming to us for help with crisis support, energy problems and not having enough money to make ends meet than ever before.  We are the first port of call for local people who need help to cope with the increase in the cost of living.  We have always helped people who are struggling financially, but now as a result of the cost of living increases we are also seeing people who were previously managing struggling and never regarded themselves as economically vulnerable.

DAVID'S STORY

People like “David”*.  He is single, lives alone and is self-employed. David phoned us as he had energy debts and was being threatened with a warrant of entry to install a prepayment meter.  A bailiff had also called regarding another debt. David had lost income during the Covid pandemic and had then been in hospital for some while and only recently started work again. David wanted help with sorting out his debts and budgeting so that he could make affordable offers of repayment.  David explained that he has medical problems and is also dyslexic and needs help to read and understand written information. He does have internet access but is not confident in using email, so would therefore prefer to discuss face to face. It was therefore arranged for a home visit by one of our Advisers. This enabled our Adviser to obtain the necessary information to help contact the different creditors and ask for a hold on enforcement actions whilst a repayment plan was put in place.

WHAT WE ARE ASKING

Over this winter, the government is giving most households a rebate of £400 split into six payments of £66.  We are asking, if you can afford it, to donate one of those payments to Citizens Advice East Herts.  We want to raise £4000 which we will spend on our advice service.  It costs us £85 to give advice to a person in need, and it can often be more if they have many, complex problems.   While our advice is mainly delivered by our amazing volunteers,  it costs us £1400 to train a volunteer and £300 a year to support them in their work. 

We know that the Cost of Living is affecting all of us, but some people are less able than others to cope than others.  If you are able to afford to give £66 as a one off donation to enable us to help them weather the storm, we’d be very grateful.  

THANK YOU 

*NOT REAL NAME

This project successfully funded on 2nd February 2023