 We are delighted to announce that TrustID have chosen Reading Family Aid as their first official charity partner! Reading Family Aid help children living with poverty and other disadvantages in the Reading area. Our goal is to bring joy to their lives and to put smiles on the faces of children! TrustID is a business specialising in identity document validation services which has grown and developed in Reading over the last 10 years, and we’re very happy they have chosen to support us as a local charity.  Ruth and Wendy from Reading Family Aid visited the TrustID office recently to chat to staff about our work.
We’re looking forward to collaborating with TrustID more in future!  What a difference a week makes! June 23rd was a glorious day, so different from last weekend at Winnersh Fete which was cold and stormy. This Sunday it was warm with a gentle breeze - perfect festival weather.  It was our first visit to Palmer Park for the East Reading Festival. It ran from noon until 6PM with a variety of businesses and charities pedalling their wares and ideas.  There was a music stage and a spoken word stage as well as a bongo drums area. It was very well attended with hundreds of people enjoying the music and browsing the various stalls.
 Both items proved very popular. This group were very excited and bought several adult and child bags for them all!
 The great thing, apart from the weather!, was that we spread the word about or work in an area of town where we were relatively unknown and we raised just over £300 again this week. These funds will go towards the outings we are organising over the summer. Thanks to everyone who supported us!
 Reading Family Aid is really grateful to two funding bodies who between them have provided funds for our outing to Camp Mohawk in August which is for disadvantaged families with at least one child on the autistic spectrum. They are The Berkshire Nurses & Relief in Sickness Trust and Reading Dispensary Trust. The Berkshire Nurses & Relief in Sickness Trust provides funding for Berkshire and South Oxfordshire residents and organisations who need individual support through illness or disability and to organisations like ours which is providing some benefit to people with illness or disability. They contributed £600 towards the £1200 cost of the Outing. The Reading Dispensary Trust is a medical charity that makes grants for equipment and services not available through statutory sources to those suffering from physical, mental illness or disability. They also contributed £600 toward the outing. Camp Mohawk is a multi-functional day centre for children with special needs and their families, set in 5 acres of beautiful countryside, just outside Wargrave, Berkshire. Throughout the year the centre provides a range of activities, facilities and natural space to encourage children with a variety of special needs to play, socialise and learn in a secure and caring environment.  Reading Family Aid arranges an annual outing to Camp Mohawk. It is a very popular outing with parents and children alike enjoying a fun filled day in the various indoor and outdoor play and sensory areas, the heated outdoor pool and the petting zoo that we arrange to visit the site.
 Celia holding down the gazebo leg with her foot to prevent it taking off with people playing the tombola game. Last Saturday Reading Family Aid had a couple of stalls at Winnersh Fete. It was a very stormy, cold day with gale force gusts of wind and torrential showers of rain. Not to be out off with such adverse weather, the Reading Family Aid Team with a few extra helpers battled through the day, several of them being posted to hold down the gazebo!  Wendy, our Chair, with the raffle hampers she'd prepared Just over £300 was raised via a tombola, lollipop game and a raffle. We understand that we will also get a share of the general proceeds from the event as one of the two charities the Winnersh Fete committee chose to support this year. Thank you Winnersh Fete Committee and all attendees!
 Laura Windisch, Secretary and Ruth Perkins, Fundraising Mgr enjoying the social event at P&G Reading Family Aid is very excited to have Proctor and Gamble as one of our major sponsors for this year!
They are donating £3,000 which will be spent on outings and gifts for the Toys and Teens Appeal later in the year. On 21st June they held company charity social event to allow the staff members to engage with us and the other charities the company is supporting this year. Thank you so much P&G!  In the Easter holidays, we were able to team up with some of our partner organisations to offer some families a day out at Odds Farm Park in High Wycombe. Odds Farm is an "Approved Farm Park" which provides a unique opportunity for children to learn, have fun and engage with chickens, sheep, goats and more, including some rarer breeds. It may have rained for most of the day but that didn’t dampen any spirits! We are grateful to the Englefield Charitable Trust for providing the funds for this lovely day out.  We received some wonderful feedback from the children and their parents/carers: "Thank you so much for a fantastic day – the children absolutely loved it." "We loved feeding the animals. The piglets were so cute!" "Thank you so much, it means so much to us. We haven’t had the easiest few months. Thank you again it was a great adventure for both of us."  Some of the families were referred by Fifi''s Vision which provides support to families with additional needs. Their representative said "Firstly I need to say a Big Thank you to Reading Family Aid as they so kindly and generously gifted Fifi's Vision CIC an Odds Farm trip over the Easter holidays. I was able to take families from our weekly groups on a coach to Odds Farm where we all had an amazing day even with the rain. Days out aren't always accessible for many reasons but with Fifi's Vision peer support and Reading Family Aid gifting such an amazing opportunity many families from Fifi's Vision were able to join us and benefit from the family day out giving all much needed respite and family bonding. Thank you again Reading Family Aid".  Laura Windisch, Reading Family Aid's 'Toys and Teens' Manager, was recently awarded the University of Reading's Alumni and Supporter Volunteer of the Year. She started volunteering as an undergraduate, helping to man the university Nightline listening service for students who needed someone to talk to. After graduating in French and German, Laura worked at the university for many years in various administration roles before leaving to take up a role in admissions at Oxford Brookes. In 2019 she retired as Head of Admissions and, looking for a voluntary role, found that Reading Family Aid were looking for a project manager to manage the 'Toys and Teens' project. Her skills matched what we were looking for and she joined us that Autumn. During the Covid pandemic she also volunteered in the university medical centre booking students in for their covid vaccinations and she helped Activate Learning College in Bracknell to process testing their students for COVID-19 before they could return to school.  Laura with Cllr Tony Page, Reading's Mayor, and may of the volunteers at last Year's Toys and Teens project For Laura, it’s as simple as being able to help others that drives her passion for volunteering. She explained: “I know it sounds corny, but I genuinely do enjoy helping others. If someone can do something with my help, that they otherwise couldn’t have, then it’s worth it.”
It is that feeling that she endorses to those considering volunteering. Laura said: “If you’re thinking about volunteering, you’re thinking about it for a reason and you should do it! You’ll make new friends, have new experiences and you will feel good about yourself- what’s not to love? “My advice would be to try and find a role that suits your skills, whether that’s cooking, listening, planning, driving or gardening. If you find a role that uses your skills then you’ll be able to make the biggest difference and find it more fulfilling.” It is this wealth of dedication to helping others that won Laura the 2024 Celebration of Volunteering Alumni and Supporters Award on 25 April. On hearing that she had won, Laura said: “I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face, it was just amazing. I couldn’t wait to tell my friends at Age UK and Reading Family Aid – they were really proud.”  Earlier this month Reading Family Aid were excited to hear from Reading Voluntary Action that they had been awarded their "Safe and Sound" quality mark for charity governance. This means that any organisation that may be thinking of getting involved with us in any way can be assured that the relationship will be dealt with in a professional way and that any donations made, any activities undertaken or toys and gifts received will have been managed safely and securely. This quality mark was awarded after going through a rigorous process of assessment of our constitution, policies, processes and procedures by reviewing our Constitution and Governance and Admin handbooks, interviewing our team members and recommending improvements where necessary. While the initial assessment was very favourable, we did make changes to our constitution, added some new policies and procedures and enhanced some existing ones, particularly in the area of safeguarding, to make them more rigorous.  Reading Voluntary Action is a brilliant organisation that exists to promote and support the individuals and groups who make up our diverse voluntary and community sector. They work to:
 Image from Unsplash (stock image) Reading Family Aid is delighted to have partnered with Refugee Support Group again this year to provide a donation of Easter eggs for the children they support.
Maria Baker from Refugee Support Group said “The gift of the Easter eggs was met with much excitement and joy. Refugee and asylum seeking children from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Sudan, Ukraine and other countries were able to celebrate a traditional custom in safety with their friends and family. Smiles were plentiful.” Earlier this month we received a generous donation of toys from Kids in Mind. Kids in Mind receive a huge number of toys from Cash for Kids which they distribute around the UK. Huge thanks to Gordon, a trustee of Kids in Mind, for delivering and unloading the van, it was a pleasure to meet him.  |
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