Rebuilding lives by furnishing homes

Aim

Hidden Help helps those most in need in Cornwall with donated recycled household items from the local community, to create a home.

Cornwall has some of the poorest areas in Europe and with the current energy crisis and high rate of inflation, the situation is likely to get worse.  Hidden Help was established over 15 years ago to help those most in need; those fleeing domestic violence, the homeless, refugees, ex-offenders, the elderly, the long-term sick and those being re-housed, to get household items which have been donated by the local community, (and thus being recycled locally also).  So often our clients do not even have carpets, just concrete floors, no beds, (not even for children), nothing to cook with, essentially, nothing at all.  We help them get back their dignity and to create a home.

Hidden Help operates two warehouses where we store household items donated from local people, and operate two vans, so that we can both collect those items and fit out a client / vulnerable person's house in an expeditious way.

Hidden Help is almost entirely run by volunteers.  (We only have an admin working part time.)

Our operational costs are over £26K a year, so we need to raise funds from donations and from our vintage and bric-a-brac shop, and there are some items which we need to purchase because we cannot obtain them, such as curtain rails, and carpet tiles which are donated for free, but have costs of nearly £1,000 per lorry load delivery.

We also support clients and volunteers with valuable work experience.

This project successfully funded on 5th January 2023