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Disadvantaged Families To Receive Christmas Hampers
Kent Community Foundation has awarded funding to provide Christmas food hampers for families living in poverty in Edenbridge.
In October Kent Community Foundation received an impassioned plea from Friends of Holcot for an additional £1,000 to provide Christmas hampers for disadvantaged families in the Edenbridge community.
The charity Friends of Holcot has been working with disadvantaged families in Edenbridge for almost twenty-five years. The families they support, some with disabled children, live in poverty, and the charity began providing hampers as a temporary measure during the pandemic. This year these families were facing the ‘grimmest’ Christmas ever with many telling the charity that they felt under more pressure this year to find the money for Christmas food, than the last two combined.
Lesley Andrews, who manages the Friends of Holcot Community Outreach Project, said “When I began planning the funding for Christmas, I budgeted for about fifty hampers to include all the usual treats, a wrapped gift and fresh food items. However, as the cost-of-living crisis escalated we received more requests for help from families that are struggling and we now have almost eighty families registered with us. To ensure the seventy families who requested a hamper would receive one, I needed to increase the original budget from £2,500 to £3,500 and not knowing how I might find the additional money in time I approached Kent Community Foundation to see if they might be able to help.”
Josephine McCartney, Chief Executive Kent Community Foundation, takes up the story. “Edenbridge is in the Sevenoaks district and we know from the Needs Analysis report we commissioned earlier this year, that although perceived to be affluent, Sevenoaks has pockets of rural and urban deprivation. When my team received the plea for additional support to help families with a much-needed Christmas hamper they acted quickly and the Martello Fund, one of the philanthropic funds we manage, agreed to award Friends of Holcot the £1,000 they needed. We know that the hampers will take some of the pressure off the families that the Friends of Holcot supports and we are delighted that we have been able to support this initiative.”
Lesley Andrews, continued, “We are so very grateful to Kent Community Foundation. Without their funding I am not sure what we would have done! But all our families will now receive a hamper and Christmas will be a little easier for every one of them.”