Thanks to fantastic support from the people of Surrey in 2022 our Winter campaign was able to award grants of over £239,000 to 41 different organisations supporting those most in need, including food banks, baby banks and warm hubs.

This year in addition to the projects we supported last year, like warm hubs, food banks and energy advice, we will be raising money to provide help in two key, highly impactful ways:

• To provide hardship funding direct to individuals or families in need via schools, food banks, pantries or other local organisations who are in contact with those most in need;
• To support organisations working with people to encourage and support them to save for the future.
  

We’ve chosen those two priority areas after listening carefully to schools, food banks and debt advice organisations in our county about what makes the biggest difference to the people they help. In the last year our Area Funds in particular have been working with local schools to disperse funding to support things like the costs of school trips or equipment.

We want to encourage families in particular to save because families in poverty are far less likely to have any savings. 65% of those in poverty live in a family in which no adult saves. The average family in poverty has no liquid assets at all, while the average family outside of poverty has liquid assets of around £4,500. This matters, because it means that families are more likely to run into financial difficulties when they face an unforeseen expense like a fridge or cooker breaking, or suffer an income shock, like the loss of employment or difficulty with their benefits.

Please help us to hit our target of £100,000, any amount is hugely welcome, you can donate via the Donate button on this page.