Hello
I’m Peter Cluff, Chairman of Guildford Philanthropy and this is my blog, a place to keep you up to date on everything we are doing and will be doing to help and transform the lives of those in need in our special borough.
The year began with a brisk start for us, with a grant of £5,720 to the Guildford Bike Project, a scheme we launched in 2012; the support of two further Corporate Ambassadors, in DMH Stallard and the John Rigg Charitable Trust; and two new initiatives in the pipeline – a sandwich business and a social enterprise training workshop. Then Coronavirus (Covid-19) struck.
Our raison d’être is to promote social enterprise and help get those not in education or employment into work, but thankfully the Fund’s criteria also allows us to support areas of special concern. This flexibility has proved crucial in 2020 enabling us to pivot our activities to focus help on those in the borough most affected by the pandemic.
Firstly, by giving financial support to those local charities which help vulnerable people in the community but were struggling financially during lockdown. Grants have been made to The Matrix Trust, Guildford Voluntary Action and the North Guildford Foodbank.
Secondly, through direct hands-on support. In partnership with Foodwise TLC we launched an initiative to provide hot food to vulnerable people. We were working with Foodwise TLC before the crisis piloting a scheme to ensure children could access a hot meal during school holidays. With the onset of lockdown, schools were now going to be shut for longer and we realised that entire families would likely be struggling to put food on the table.
Foodwise TLC hired chefs and started cooking in three kitchens across Guildford – in a church hall, a nursery school and a cafe. Six recipes were created, ingredients bought, and the food cooked, frozen and then delivered across the borough. I am incredibly proud and honoured we helped to fund this initiative and provide volunteers and expertise.
Through this creative enterprise we are providing just under 3,000 meals a week to over 200 families, with the cooked meals being supplemented by free pre-prepared meals donated from Bills restaurant and frozen food retailers Cook. With demand still so high, we expect there will be a need to sustain this initiative until the end of the summer holidays and Foodwise and Guildford Philanthropy are making provisions to ensure that this challenge can be met.
Realising that our activities were going to need additional fund-raising, we went back to our fantastic Corporate Ambassadors, existing donors and appealed to new donors. We used the power of our local radio stations, Eagle and BBC Surrey, to help with this and went on air to explain the help we needed to help others.
I have been overwhelmed with the response. It has been utterly amazing. Since the beginning of March – so just under four months – we have raised nearly £120,000. A new Corporate Ambassador, MCV Investments, has come on board and six of our founding Corporate Ambassadors have stepped up to renew their commitment for a second year; and we hope many more will follow suit. The amount raised has been boosted by the generous match-funding from Guildford Borough Council, who themselves have played a vital role as community leaders throughout the outbreak protecting and providing for our vulnerable communities in so many ways, while maintaining our borough’s vital frontline services.
As we begin to slowly move into the recovery phase of the crisis, I’m excited to confirm that we will be looking to launch new initiatives and support existing projects to help those needing to retrain and looking for new employment opportunities.
We are committed to raising awareness and encouraging local giving to tackle local need and we are always looking for people to join us. If you would like to get involved or just find out more, please drop me a line – I’d love to hear from you.
