As another year ends we would like to thank you all for your wonderful support again last year. With your donations, attendance at our events and membership of our 200 Club, we have been able to spend £15,623 on local homelessness initiatives during 2017.

We have continued to spend £200 per month on fresh meat, milk and cheese for HARP to provide meals for their clients. We gave HARP £3,500 for transition programmes which help clients into work and housing, bought garden benches and the bedding for the 20 beds in the new women’s hostel and also financed a garden project which will involve clients working to better their environment.

We are continuing to support The Churches Winter Shelters programme. We assisted last year by purchasing the bed rolls, sleeping bags etc. that were needed to set up the shelter in Leigh Road Baptist Church. We have also given them £500 towards the cost of installing a shower for their rough sleepers. Another £650 was given to support the general costs of running all the Church night shelters. We have also financed ‘Suspended Meals’ at Oasis café, to enable them to give hot meals to those who need it.

We sponsored one of the Youth awards at Southend YMCA and we are raising funds to support their project, ‘Mary’s House’ (a safe refuge for the most vulnerable youngsters.) We have been able to give them £4,950 this year. We also made up a Christmas parcel for each of the 33 youngsters who are spent Christmas at the YMCA this year.

We hope you all had a very happy and peaceful New Year and we would love to hear from anyone who would be willing to join the Committee so that we can continue to help those around us who are in need next year.