On Friday June 2nd, Reading Family Aid celebrated 30 years being a registered charity. We celebrated by providing gifts to around 45 children whose birthdays were on or around June 2nd. We invited them, with their families, to a small celebration in Forbury Gardens. It was a glorious afternoon and much cake was eaten! On a gloriously sunny Tuesday April 4th we organised an outing to Odds Farm for around 20 families. The families are all supported by Alana House, The Weller Centre and Homestart Reading. One mum said "It was a fantastic day for all what you did for my children and family loved the day out hope many more comes up and we can go again and the weather was brilliant and the children didn’t wanted to come home xx" Thanks to all our supporters who have donated in recent times. You have enabled us to put all these smiles on so many faces.
Thankyou! One of the charities supported by Reading Family Aid held an Easter Party and we were able to provide each child with an Easter Egg. Yum! At most golf clubs there is a tradition of new captains choosing one or more charities for whom they will fundraise in the club for that year. Reading Golf Club follows this tradition and this year Cathy Jones, Club Captain and Hilary Rusby, Ladies Captain have chosen to support Reading Family Aid. Any fundraising events that the Club hold during the year will generate funds for us. On a surprisingly sunny afternoon on April 2nd the two new captains of Reading Golf Club drove off to mark the beginning of their year's. Reading Golf Club's new home is The Caversham in Chazey Heath. Here are Cathy and Hilary driving off after the preceding captains have "putted out". At the "Drive In" they asked members to guess the combined distances of their drives for a small fee. £133 was raised on this their first day. Ruth Perkins, RFA's Fundraising Mgr attended the event and was able to say "Thankyou very much Reading Golf Club for choosing us this year". On Tuesday March 21st we attended the Bright Futures for Children Spring Marketplace event. We made contact with social workers, teachers and other charities that had not heard of us before. We are hopeful that this may result in more supporters and more families that may benefit from our work. In early January we were sad to hear that Don Box was missing from his home. Don was a long time supporter of Reading Family Aid and was married to Vera Box who has been involved in the charity since the 1970s. Sadly, despite a huge search by the police and many members of the public, Don was found a few days later in someone's garden having passed away. He worked for Great Western Railways all his working life, being involved in many major projects, including the Channel Tunnel. Once he retired, Vera got him working for Reading Family Aid. He audited our accounts for many years and worked as one of the van men in the Christmas Toys and Teens project. Once he was no longer up to lifting and carrying the huge boxes and bags he was 'promoted' to be in charge of the rubbish! He was always happy and smiling and full of stories about his working and family life. We shall miss him. A large bulging envelope plopped through the letter box and inside were a large number of beautifully designed thank you cards from children at one of the schools we support. Thank you so much for sending them. Many had lovely comments and drawings inside.
After a hiatus of two years, the 2022 Christmas Toys and Teens was the first time post-covid that we have done a full toy appeal with Donation Points around town and asking everyone to donate toys. We were optimistic that donations would be as fantastic as they previously were but were slightly worried that, given the cost of living increases, many people would find it difficult to be as generous as in previous years. We were also slightly worried that the number of children that we would receive requests for would go up, for the same reason. Well, we were right to be worried on both counts. 2022 turned out to be a difficult year for Reading Family Aid's Toys and Teens. The number of requests went up from 2558 in 2021 to 3001 in 2022 - a 20% increase and a 50% increase on the last 'proper' Toys and Teens we did pre-covid, in 2019. Couple this with toy donations being significantly down - only about 50% of the donations of 2019. But with the help of our Sponsors, the many, many individual people of Reading, clubs, schools, places of worship, businesses and some very generous donations from a number of funding organisations as well as a good number of smaller monetary donations from a large number of individuals and the amazing shopping and on-line ordering skills of several of the RFA elves, we did manage to provide each child with at least a couple of toys or gifts each.
and over £2,000 in other donations from various individuals, businesses and places of worship - thanks to you all too! Huge thanks also to one of our sponsors this year: Berkshire Freemasons for their huge number of donations of toys which they brought to the hall on the Sunday afternoon.
and to Caversham Vehicle Hire for the free loan of two vans - we couldn't do it without you. Thanks to all our Donation Points for encouraging people to donate, in particular to Roc Search who made the largest cardboard box imaginable! Huge thanks to all the anonymous individual people of Reading who took so many toys and gifts to the donation points and those of you that donated them to all the amazing clubs, businesses, schools and places of worship. To mention a few of those organisations here: Woodley FC, Calcot FC, St Andrews School Pangbourne, St Andrews Church Sonning, St Peters Church Caversham, Cellnex, Clarify, Tilehurst Methodist Church, The Heights Primary School, The Oratory Prep School, Moulsford Boys Prep School, Allianz in Guildford, The Christchurch Centre in Henley, Fourbears Books in Caversham who organised a reverse Santa, Landmark Estate Agents, Chiltern Nursery, ...... Thanks to you and all the other anonymous donators - you are all AMAZING!
and to Reading's Deputy Mayor, Cllr Debs Edwards for coming along during Toy Project week. She said she was disappointed at how few donations there were on the tables when she visited. And thanks to all those organisations who donated tables for us to use including Caversham Hall, 89th Reading Scouts, St Anne's in Caversham and St Barnabas in Emmer Green. And thanks to the anonymous but amazing church hall where we do all the work each year, who donate the use of the hall for the whole week for nothing. Thank you all. Checking, sorting and packing the toys would not be possible with out the help of our army of volunteers, many of whom turn up year after year to help and some who came from far and wide, even Birmingham and Cardiff! Thank you to everyone that came to help all 98 of you! And thank to all the vanmen who collected and returned the tables, collected all the donations from the donation points, the companies, schools and places of worship that had in-house collections. and delivered the 736 packed sacks to 97 family representatives, travelling 530 miles around Reading in total. So that's it over for another year.
Against the odds, another amazingly successful year. Everyone pulled together and we managed to put another 3001 smiles on children's faces, to say nothing of their parent's. Two brothers who had no toys at all at home were so excited to receive their toys - they couldn't believe that they were theirs to keep. That's why we do it. And we'll do it all again in 2023: Appeal Launch on October 19th Toy Project week 3rd - 8th December During Christmas week, our committee members were invited to spend the afternoon at Coley Park Community Centre with the founder and leader of Grassrootz charity, Kelvin Husbands, as well as some of the Grassrootz volunteers and the young people they work with. As a thank you for the support they have received from Reading Family Aid’s Toys and Teens appeal this Christmas, Grassrootz organised a wonderful afternoon of homemade cakes, teas and coffees and board games. Five of our committee members attended and a wonderful time was had by all. The Grassrootz team told us about the weekly youth clubs they run (in Whitley, Caversham Park Village and Coley Park) and their mentorship programme, whereby the older teenagers mentor the more junior members. It was clear to us that Grassrootz’ role in the personal and professional development of Reading’s young people is what makes it so special. Grassrootz has been supported by Reading Family Aid in the past with toys and equipment for the children at their junior youth clubs, and we were thrilled to be able to help again this year. Now, more than ever, young people need support and both Reading Family Aid and Grassrootz work with the aim of putting smiles on children’s and teenagers' faces. Reading Family Aid’s Toys & Teens Appeal, sponsored by The Chronicle, Reading, will be ending on 4th December. The charity has had an unprecedented amount of requests for presents this year, for nearly 3,000 children, as parents “struggle to keep houses and feed their children.” The charity’s Toys and Teens Appeal, sponsored by The Reading Chronicle, aims to plug the gap, but one volunteer of 20 years said the rising demand was “scary”. “Everybody thinks Reading is quite an affluent place but there’s huge areas of deprivation and the gap between those that have and those that haven’t seems to be growing. It’s pretty bleak,” said Ruth Perkins, from RFA. “The number of children has just gone up and up. When I was first involved I think there was about 500 and we are just under 3,000 this year. That’s 3,000 Reading children who otherwise wouldn’t get any Christmas presents so it’s quite scary really.” She continued: “It’s always a bit stressful – will we match up the number of donations against the number of children?” The Toys and Teens appeal has gathered support over the years from its incredibly kind donators including Big Yellow Storage, Tescos, Roc Search, The Masons, Logicalis, MacBeths and Connect Reading . One organization making a difference is the John Sykes Foundation, which donated £1,000 to the cause on Friday, November 18. Founder John Sykes said: “Every child should feel the excitement of waking up to gifts under the tree, however we know for some families that after a tough year are struggling to even get by day-to-day, and for some it's a question of putting food on the table or affording presents.” There are 28 donation points across Reading and the surrounding areas where generous residents can visit. If you work for a company based in Reading or the surrounding areas, consider setting up a toy collection in your office, like Cellnex and many others have done, or donating to one of the donation points across Reading. Please visit our Toy Donations page for details of how to donate and what can (and can't) be donated. There is also an online GoFundMe appeal. Money donated buys presents for age groups that aren’t typically provided for, like teenagers, as well as batteries for toys, and is an easier way to donate for those that can’t access donation points. But be quick! Time is running out! Thank you. |
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