Home-Start Southport and Formby

A charity that supports families in Southport has been ‘overwhelmed’ by a donation of £2,000 from Community Link Foundation to help them during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Home-Start Southport and Formby has been working to provide support to families in Southport for 20 years. The charity usually offers a weekly home visiting service to families, but they are unable to do this at the current time and have been using other ways to make sure families feel connected.

Since day one of the lockdown, Home-Start has still been in contact with all the families by organising weekly deliveries of fresh fruit and vegetable boxes. At Easter they delivered 100 Easter eggs and last week they delivered toys, games and books to families.

Annie Ives, manager of Home-Start Southport and Formby, said: “At the moment families are feeling increasingly stressed and anxious so it’s important that, as a charity, we continue to offer reassurance and support.

“We have been overwhelmed by the response from friends and supporters of Home-Start who have made donations so that we can carry on with our deliveries. When Community Link Foundation saw our Facebook post and told us they were donating £2,000 we were overwhelmed.

“We are so grateful for their financial help and assistance. It really brightens someone’s day to receive one of these deliveries and CLF have helped make this possible.”

Community Link Foundation’s aim is to support people within the community and thanks to the generosity of supporters and people who donate through Southport Community Lottery it has been possible to help Home-Start when it is most needed.

Enda Rylands, chair of Community Link Foundation, said: “We are pleased to be able to help HomeStart when they are trying to support so many people. We saw their appeal for donations on their social media channels and the CLF trustees were all in agreement that we should help.

“This donation was only possible because of the wonderful generosity of friends and supporters of Community Link Foundation so thank you to them.”

The Southport Community Lottery is just £5 a month and gives you the chance to win money as well as us being able to use it for grants such as this. Please think about signing up and enabling CLF to continue to help good causes at the heart of our community.

To join the monthly lottery, go to: clfoundation.co.uk/southport-community-lottery/

To make a donation to Home-Start go to https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/donation-web/charity?charityId=1005854&stop_mobi=yes