Family Friends has thanked The Garfield Weston Foundation for a £10,000 grant that helped us support struggling families in Windsor and Maidenhead last year. The foundation’s act of kindness helped us to run our volunteer support service during 2017, providing families with practical and emotional support during regular visits to their homes. The money from the foundation helped towards supporting 47 families and recruiting, training, and supervising eight new volunteers.
These quotes from mothers that had volunteer support in the home illustrate the impact this work had:
- “Without the support, honestly, I would have emotionally and physically struggled.”
- “Without Clare’s support everything would have all just mounted up on me. I don’t think I would be in a very good place right now without support.”
- “I would not have made it this far, practically or emotionally, without Family Friends support. Nikki was a great volunteer for me and helped me enormously. Without her support, I would be depressed and stuck physically.”
For each of the families we helped, our volunteer coordinator visited them to assess their needs, then carefully matched them with an available volunteer. She then visited the family again to introduce them to the volunteer, and together they worked with the parent to develop an action plan.
Family Friends’ Chief executive Jane Drapkin said: “This enormously generous grant from the Garfield Weston Foundation enabled us to provide valuable help to many local people struggling in their family lives for a variety of reasons.
“Our volunteers are the backbone of our charity and provide important practical and emotional support to families. These funds were vital to renewing and strengthening the work we carry out in this area. Thank you again to the trustees for providing us with these funds and for recognising the vital work we do in the Windsor and Maidenhead area.”
Above: Some of our volunteer team
