500 together

We are pleased to be able to share news of donation number 102 and send a big thank you to the member who nominated   Penistone Food Buddies . Penistone Food Buddies is a food bank that has recently been set up in the area to help people struggling with the cost of living and the challenge so many families face to put food on the table.  The organisers, Julie and Mark, were hugely involved in ‘United for Ukraine’, sending donated goods to those affected by the war in Ukraine, but once that came to a natural end, they saw a need to help local people and have set up Penistone Food Buddies. The focus is on providing basic food to get individuals and families through the weekend, for example cereal, rice, tinned meat and/or veg, and sachets of sauce and/or spices. Our £500 has helped them buy provisions to get them off the ground and up and running. They sent us this message:  “On behalf of Penistone Food Buddies we would like to thank you for your donation of £500. This...

Two of our members, Eve and Adam, sent us this nomination about the challenges their friends were facing after the birth of their baby. Thanks to them for taking the time to tell the story: It is the high quality of people that primarily makes a city great. To our great fortune, Sheffield is blessed with many and you could not wish to meet two better people than John and Christina - two of the kindest, most compassionate people in town. A year ago the couple were blessed with their first child. Things seemed to be going well at first until Christina came down with severe postnatal depression. It was both heartbreaking to see her decline and how she was suffering with it and yet encouraging to see John rally round her and their child. John currently works remotely at home so while he had to get his work done and be available for his work colleagues, to a degree he could also help tend to Christina and her needs. However, with the depression, Christina was spending every waking moment s...

We have made our 100th donation AND we can also celebrate the milestone of giving away £40,000 to these 100 varied recipients since we made our first donation 3 years ago in November 2019.   We really do not know how to thank you all for being a part of this.  It is incredible that your weekly contributions have achieved so much.  Numerous families helped and local organisations supported.   You have genuinely made a difference to so many people - not least to K, the recipient of donation number 100.  Here is her story, told by her wonderful nominator: Leaving your abusive husband is hard.   If you have no family in the area, it's even harder.   If he continues to be abusive but doesn't want you to leave it's harder.  If you are pregnant and have got toddlers it's harder.  If you don't work and have never applied for benefits it's even harder.  Often abused women will leave then go back, for practical reasons.  It can take a fe...

One of our members told us about Donna & her family.  Her son Samuel, who is now nine years old, had a brain stem stroke at 18 months old which left him with hydrocephalus, a weakened side and facial palsy.  He also has epilepsy.  On a recent family holiday in a remote field in Norfolk, Samuel had a massive seizure in the night and the ambulance took 19 minutes to get to them. It was very traumatic for the whole family, particularly as Samuel's 13 year old sister and dad witnessed it too. He has had seizures before but not to this magnitude. Not surprisingly, the family have all struggled to sleep as a result.  Donna has spent night after night watching Samuel while he sleeps, paranoid of a repeat seizure. Our member told us how much a night time sleep monitor/ seizure detector would help the family feel able to sleep, knowing they would be alerted to any issues overnight.  We all know the importance of sleep - and it was our absolute ple...

  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 arr...

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 menta...

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 t...