500 together

  We are pleased to be able to bring news about our 98th donation this weekend, which sees our wonderful collective £s combine to  help a family one of our members met through the charity Refugees at Home.   The father, Hosa, has been in the UK for 3 years, living in a hostel, having fled from Saudi Arabia.  He has been through a long visa application process and recently his wife and 4 daughters, aged 7, 9, 12 & 15 have been granted reunification visas to join him here.  They hadn’t seen each other for 3 years.   The Refugee Council helped Hosa and his family find emergency accommodation with our member through Refugees at Home, and also quickly helped them get allocated a council flat - but as we frequently hear, it is woefully under furnished, so not easy for the family to get settled.   The family have nothing - our member has helped as far as she can with some basics, but asked if we could offer anything. It is so hard to imagine arriving in a new country with nothing and wond

Our 97th donation of £440 goes to help out M, a lady who one of our members identified as needing some 500 together support. M is trying to move forward with her life after a traumatic childhood. She lives on her own, but goes to her ex-partners house most days to be mum to her two daughters. Our member told us that M had been looking forward to attending her friend's wedding as a bridesmaid this year.  Her friend was struggling to get the money to book the rooms for the bridal party together, so M lent her £200, which she could ill afford herself, towards the rooms.  The next day her friend told M that she would not be welcome at the wedding after all,  due to her mental health problems making everyone miserable and her ticks making everyone uncomfortable and promptly blocked her on all media.  Obviously the rejection was extremely hurtful, and it left M without £200 for her own bills and needs. Our member has been working with M to help her try to improve her mental and physical

Although the vast majority of our donations go within the Sheffield/South Yorkshire area, donation number 96 has taken a short trip down the M1 after one of our members asked us to consider their excellent nomination for Nourish Sherwood, a community group local to them, in Nottingham.   Nourish originally started cooking hot meals for those who needed it during the pandemic and have continued to do so since, as they saw first- hand the level of need in their community.  The food is very straightforward but nutritious and is provided once a week to around 100 people. The group also welcomes anyone to drop in and have a cup of tea and meet others even if they don't want a meal.  After receiving the nomination, we chatted to one of the organisers and heard how committed they are to helping their local community and how it is completely voluntarily run but relies on donations to keep going.  We were very pleased to contribute £500 to Nourish Sherwood to help them continue their work,

This weekend, we can tell you about  our  95th donation of £500, which has gone to help a family, recently resettling in Sheffield. This family is originally from Iraq and have previously tried to settle in Sweden, but were forced to relocate here after experiencing problems with their personal safety in Sweden.  The father was running a shop which a gang was threatening to burn down, so they felt they had to move quickly, and as a result, were only able to bring clothing with them.   Just heartbreaking to think of the additional trauma of believing they had found a safe new life, only to be forced to flee once more. They have found themselves renting privately in Fir Vale. They have 4 daughters under 18, one of whom has special needs, and they are now renting a 2 bedroom house. The house is completely unfurnished – they only have a fridge in the kitchen, no oven or other appliances, and no beds - and after paying rent, they don’t have enough to be able to buy much else.  The family ar