The staff at Club Insure recognise that there are many people less fortunate than ourselves so every year endeavour to give a little back at Christmas. This year staff are being encouraged to donate gifts to a Cookridge based charity ‘Caring for Life’ local to our office.
Caring for Life is a registered Christian charity, committed to providing long term support and care to individuals with multiple needs, including homelessness, issues stemming from childhood neglect and abuse, significant learning disabilities, mental health issues and physical disabilities. The charity has built up a comprehensive support network, which now includes:
- ‘Being There’ Housing Support Project –120 vulnerable people aged 16 to 82 are currently supported in independent living in the community
- 24-hour Supported Homes for 16 people with high support needs
- Therapeutic Daytime activities on the Trust’s farm – 70 attend each week
Over the past 27 years, CFL has proved the enormous value of therapeutic daytime activities for the people referred to its care. Providing a homeless person with nothing other than a roof over their heads, fails to address the core issues of homelessness or re-offending and invariably results in people returning to homelessness. Offering ‘free’ access to CFL’s day time projects has proved to be remarkably successful in enabling people to maintain tenancies, massively reduce reoffending and achieve marked improvements in other areas of their lives.
It has helped several hundred to move on into employment and hold down a job. The mental health of those attending projects can also improve significantly, as can their physical health, as they take part in activities and benefit from the provision of free healthy cooked meals each day.
In addition to a committed team of full-time staff members, the Trust benefits from the dedicated assistance of 100 volunteers, 45 of whom give one day’s voluntary work to the charity every week. The charity seeks to make a contribution towards its own costs, through its social enterprise Granary restaurant and farm shop on-site, as well as the horticultural nurseries that function at the farm. However, donations from individuals, churches, companies and other organisations are the lifeblood of the charity, for which we are immensely grateful.
The charity has identified gift cards as one of the main types of gifts that can be purchased. These mean that their support staff can go with a person and help them choose treats: goods for their home, clothes, DVDs, whatever they want. Doing this together is something very special and such a joy for those in their care.
Club Insure wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
