A huge ‘Thank you!’ from the Serving the Homeless Committee

Firstly thanks to all who turned out on a bitterly cold evening for our Carol Concert on 16th December, and to Fr Kevin who hosted the evening. We raised £700 in donations on the night.

This year, with your generous help and support,

We have:

Given HARP £300 per month for food ; £1,683 for a Defibrillator at the Bradbury Centre and £3,500 for meaningful activities and general support. In addition, we also provided approximately £500 worth of turkeys for Christmas dinners at HARP properties.

HARP now houses over 220 clients and provides almost 6,000 hot meals a year as well as helping clients overcome trauma, learn skills and find work. Their Bluebird Project which will house and provide training for a further 50 clients is now almost complete. In total we have given HARP £9,033.60 this year.

Seen the Southend YMCA new housing project come to fruition. This will house very young vulnerable youngsters in a family style environment. We have been able to provide £7,600 to this project this year.
Provided 40 Christmas bags of ‘goodies’ to the young people who live at, and are looked after by, Southend YMCA.
Financed 2 nights emergency hotel accommodation for a young person while they were found support.
Given £1,000 to support the work of the St. Vincent Centre in Southend.

In all, with your help, we have spent approximately £17,633 this year on programmes to support the homeless.