500 together

This week we are pleased to send £500 to help W, a single parent from Poland, who has found herself with some awful financial problems through a complication with her housing benefit.. W works as a cashier in Sheffield and like so many has been affected massively by the cost of living crisis. 5 years ago, W informed Universal Credit about changes in her work - details she expected to be passed on to the council and the housing benefit team. However, a couple of months ago the council informed her that following a case review they discovered they had been overpaying her housing benefit for these 5 years and she owed over £4000. This came as a complete shock to W, who is obviously not in a position to pay this back.    She has become ill with the stress and is currently on a very long waiting list for some mental health support through IAPT.     She is receiving support to discuss manageable repayment plans with the council, but is understandably very overwhelmed by the unexpected situat

  One of our members told us about Roman, a Polish friend who they have known since 2016.  Roman uses the Nourish food service we supported back in September. Roman’s Polish passport expired in Feb 2022. At the time, the Covid backlog made it nearly impossible to get an appointment with the Manchester Polish consulate for most Polish families. In October 2022 Roman had a ruptured ulcer and could not do his self-employed labouring work for over 4 months. He is now working shorter days and hours doing lighter gardening duties. His situation means he has very little money for daily living, let alone to pay for a new passport. The costs of not just the passport fees, but also passport photos, travel to and from Manchester to attend the consulate passport renewal interview - plus a return trip to collect the passport in person all add up, making it an insurmountable financial challenge for him to undertake. Yet Roman needs to get a passport.  Not only is he desperate to get back to Poland t

We often say how lucky we are to have among our members people who work & volunteer in some of Sheffield’s extraordinary local organisations and charities.     We always welcome nominations from them - they see so much need on a daily basis, so when they ask for our help we know our contribution will make a difference. On this occasion SWWOP (Sheffield Working Women's Opportunities Project) , an organisation which provides intensive support to vulnerable women involved in street prostitution, asked if we could help them. SWWOP’s primary service is making contact with women involved in street prostitution and being a friendly face to offer non-judgmental and confidential support and information.  They provide street based outreach and drop in sessions, with an aim to improve the women’s health and safety.  https://www.swwop.org SWWOP told us that since the start of the cost-of-living crisis, they have seen the number of women they support involved in sex work almost triple.  Wom

  We are pleased to be able to tell you about donation 117. This donation of £500 goes to the ‘Garage Free Stall’ set up by Tracy who lives in Sheffield near a hotel that houses refugees. Our donation has bought some new shoes and underwear for the refugees who find themselves housed at the hotel with very few possessions and clothing and a long wait between arriving and getting settlement status /or otherwise and receiving the right benefits.  Tracy and the other volunteers are doing an incredible job collecting donations and then each week Tracy has a stall in her garage where refugees can come and choose essential items they might need. Underwear and decent, well fitting weatherproof shoes are in short supply so we were very happy to step in and help fund this, standing alongside the Muslim Council for Britain, local Churches, Scouts and others who have also donated to the ‘garage free stall’ to help those who have arrived here with so few clothes and essentials.   Their Facebook gr