94 - Paying excess for windscreen replacement and money for bills/school shoes - Sept 2022

 This weekend we can tell you about our 94th donation, which has gone to a local family, whose plight was brought to our attention by one of our lovely members who volunteers at a food bank.

She told us that whilst this family was attending their community grocery store someone smashed her back car windscreen. The police attended, but nobody saw anything and nothing was taken so it would just be put down as malicious vandalism. 

It is horrific to imagine that whilst they were visiting a food bank, the family - a working single mum and her 2 kids -  suddenly found themselves with their much needed car out of action and absolutely no money available to fix it.  At the time the police advised the nature of the incident might mean they weren’t covered by their insurance, adding to their worries.

We obviously were keen to help, and thankfully by the time we spoke to the lady, her insurance had agreed she ‘just’ had to pay the excess.  But as she explained to us, without having budgeted for this expense she was going to find it hard to pay other bills and with additional costs of her kids going back to school, things were very tight. 

We sent her £300 - to cover the excess and some extra to put towards other bills and expenses coming her way.

She has sent you all this message, which absolutely conveys what this group is all about and what our collective £s mean to our recipients:

Thank you so much from my family to all of yours.  The donation you made to us for fixing our car window and bills has helped us with getting ready for the school term.  Without it I wouldn’t have been able to pay for school shoes.  All the money would have gone on fixing the car. 

It was incredibly upsetting to have our car vandalised when trying to get free food.  

Knowing that other people here are loving and helpful has raised my spirits. xx

And that is why we are so very grateful to you all for supporting this group and allowing us to reach people like this lady and her family.  Thank you so much for continuing to spare us your weekly contributions, and for bringing situations like this to our attention when you can.