What we do.
We are a small charity working in the Sevenoaks area to help families facing financial hardship. We provide direct, practical assistance to people who have been identified by Children’s Services as needing help which can’t be provided by central or local government: once we’ve received a referral from Children’s Services we step in to help to fill that gap.
Any family can fall on hard times and find it difficult to manage. A recent report by the Children’s Society and the Church of England called Not Making Ends Meet concludes that crisis support schemes run by local authorities are failing to operate effectively, with increasing numbers of destitute people turning instead to food banks and other voluntary agencies (like Friends for Families) for help. We aim to provide immediate, targeted help to families in severe financial need.
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Jane is a single mother of two children having left an abusive relationship, and was struggling financially. One of the children was becoming very distressed and said repeatedly that there is no food in the house. His school uniform was too small for him and his school shoes were falling apart.
While Children’s Services worked with Jane to help her situation we provided two months of food shopping, and new school shoes and uniform for the child.
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Mary and her children were in hiding after fleeing severe domestic abuse. While waiting for the children to be found a place at a new school they needed a laptop to carry out their schoolwork remotely, but Mary had no income while waiting for her Universal Credit claim to be processed (mothers often have to give up their jobs when fleeing domestic abuse so that the abuser can’t track them).
We sourced a reconditioned laptop for the children so they wouldn’t miss out on schoolwork.
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A family was placed in emergency accommodation following race-based hate crimes and death threats. They had not been able to bring many of their belongings with them and had only a thin blanket on the beds.
We provided duvets and bed linen, clothes and coats for the children, and six weeks of food shopping while Children’s Services helped them.
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Hannah is a single mother who lost most of her hours of work during the pandemic, causing severe financial hardship. Her child had outgrown her cot but Hannah couldn’t afford to buy her a bed so they were sharing a bed.
We bought the little girl a bed, bedding and bed linen so she could sleep comfortably in her own bed.
What we do in numbers
Between 5 April 2021 and 31 March 2022, we provided the following help:
249 food shops totalling £22,150
*
52 clothing/shoe purchases totalling £3,878
*
59 beds and/or mattresses totalling £9,535
*
36 white goods totalling £8,599
249 food shops totalling £22,150 * 52 clothing/shoe purchases totalling £3,878 * 59 beds and/or mattresses totalling £9,535 * 36 white goods totalling £8,599
What we stand for:
1.
We believe that it is important to address the need on our own doorstep. We want to let struggling families know that their neighbours care, and to demonstrate that care in a practical, immediate way. If you need shoes for your children’s growing feet or a bed for them to sleep in, you need that help quickly and without jumping through bureaucratic hoops to get it.
2.
We believe in practical compassion ‐ empathy needs to be backed by action. We hold out a helping hand to families who are experiencing tough times, and we show them that they have not been abandoned by the people around them, by providing them with concrete help to improve their living conditions.
3.
We believe that children deserve the opportunity to do well at school and in life, and that children who have a proper bed to sleep in, suitable clothes and shoes to wear, and a chance to participate in their school and community are more likely to do well at school and in life. Children who grow up in poverty miss out on things that most children take for granted, and we want to do something about that for local children.
Family matters.
Why families need friends.
Poverty affects more than one in four children in the UK today. *Two‐thirds of children growing up in poverty live in a family where at least one person works, but they simply don’t earn enough to have a decent standard of living. *Children from low income families often forgo events that most of us would take for granted. They miss school trips; can’t invite friends round for tea; and can’t join in after‐school activities. In the Sevenoaks area, there were 3787 children living in poverty in January 2018.** These children, and their families, need friends and neighbours who care enough to help them. Working together, we can be those friends and neighbours.
*source: Child Poverty Action Group
**source: End Child Poverty
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