The Community Link Foundation charity has donated £5,000 to local charities in the last few weeks to help deal with the extra demand on their services due to the Coronavirus.
Southport Foodbank has received £3,000 and Home-Start Southport and Formby has been given £2,000 by CLF to enable them to help local people who are dealing with tough times.
The Foodbank, based out of two local churches, is being faced with unprecedented numbers of requests for help and they want to support as many people as possible. The influx of clients is as a result of jobs being lost and the wait for Universal Credit.
Due to this, the Foodbank launched an emergency fundraising appeal and as soon as The Community Link Foundation heard about it, they pledged their support. Trustees of CLF had already been in discussion about how to help the Foodbank, when they heard of the appeal.
They immediately contacted the Foodbank and told them that they would like to help by donating £3,000.
Just two weeks later, Community Link Foundation reached out to Home-Start Southport and Formby with a donation of £2,000.
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Home-Start Southport and Formby has been working to provide support to families in Southport for 20 years. The charity usually offers a weekly home visiting service to families, but they are unable to do this at the current time and have been using other ways to make sure families feel connected.
Since day one of the lockdown, Home-Start has still been in contact with all the families by organising weekly deliveries of fresh fruit and vegetable boxes. At Easter they delivered 100 Easter eggs and last week they delivered toys, games and books to families. The donation from CLF means that they will be able to continue with their deliveries.
Enda Rylands, chair of Community Link Foundation, said: “We are so pleased that we were in a position to be able to help the Foodbank and Home-Start at a time when they are trying to support so many people. We saw their appeals for donations on their social media channels and the CLF trustees were all in agreement that we should help them both.
“These donations have only been possible because of the wonderful generosity of friends and supporters of Community Link Foundation, mainly through the monthly Southport Community Lottery that we run, so thank you to everyone who supports us.”
Southport Community Lottery is just £5 per month. 50% of the total monies taken in is awarded as prizes and the remaining 50% goes to CLF. This means that the monthly prize amount will vary as the number of participants in the Southport Community Lottery changes.
Richard Owens, Chief Executive of Compassion Acts, the local charity running the Foodbank, said: “This is unprecedented and extremely worrying for many people. We’re doing all we can to help existing clients and have reworked our distribution times but we expect there’ll be many more people needing the Foodbank in the months ahead.
“We are here for those who have fallen through the net and have nowhere else to turn. We will use the funds to purchase items we have shortages of.”
Annie Ives, manager of Home-Start Southport and Formby, said: “At the moment families are feeling increasingly stressed and anxious so it’s important that, as a charity, we continue to offer reassurance and support.
“We have been overwhelmed by the response from friends and supporters of Home-Start who have made donations so that we can carry on with our deliveries. When Community Link Foundation saw our Facebook post and told us they were donating £2,000 we were overwhelmed.
“We are so grateful for their financial help and assistance. It really brightens someone’s day to receive one of these deliveries and CLF have helped make this possible.”
Please think about signing up to the Community Lottery and enabling CLF to continue to help good causes at the heart of our community.
To join the monthly lottery, go to: clfoundation.co.uk/southport-community-lottery/
If you are an organisation, or know of any groups or families, who need support at this time, please urge them to get in touch. They can contact Community Link Foundation through the website www.clfoundation.co.uk or through the Facebook page.
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