Funding and Donations are the life blood of a charity  to ensure the organisation can finance short and long term requirements.
This takes dedication from staff making multiple funding applications, volunteers and trustees – the unsung heroes of any charity, readily giving their time for free.

Last October 2023, with crucial and valued support over the previous 18 months from Rother Voluntary Action ( RVA) we were successful in receiving a Making it Happen Grant. 

What is Making it Happen?

Making it Happen is about discovering, celebrating and building on the positive things in our local neighbourhoods. We are here to support communities to come together, make the most of the opportunities and create positive change.

Also in October, we received a substantial grant from The Chalk Cliff Trust

Donations have been received from :
The Rotary Club, A local Rye based business – The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, The Ferry Road Medical Centre and from guests at our monthly ‘Tilling Tea and Cake’.

This gave us the confidence to put our plans into action, starting with a monthly social event: Tilling, Tea and Cake’ successfully launched November 18th 2024.
The original idea was to provide a ‘warm’ social space to promote ‘Friendship, Fellowship and Fun opportunities.

In December we invited a GP (a trustee) who is setting up Sussex Outreach Support (SOS) plus CAB1066/ Police / Fire and Rescue and our local MP and  councillors.
This proved very popular with our guests and has now become part of our service to the community with a focus on information and access Health & Wellbeing at each meeting. (In our first 5 months since the launch, 148 people have attended)

We continue to ensure we have our resident GP and representatives from a variety of organisations.

Some of the organisations who have attended and are booked for the coming months:
CAB1066 / Police / Fire & Rescue / A Touch of Gentleness (hand massages) / our local Social Prescriber / information on new clubs being set up in Rye / attendance by local Councillors / MP for Hastings and Rye / Age UK / A first responder and a paramedic / and a volunteer bereavement councillor.

All will be invited back within a 6 month period or more often if guests request it. Our intention is to ensure we continue to provide this much needed information to ensure awareness and in popularity continue to grow.

Finally, in 2023 we received a donation from raffle held by Ferry Road Medical Centre and continue to receive generous donations from the guests who attend ‘Tilling ,Tea and Cake’ 

This year – 2024, we have just been awarded a grant from the: The Little Cheyne Court Wind Farm which we are extremely gratful.

In March we held a Murder Mystery and Buffet Lunch at the Mermaid Inn, attended by 55 people. Tickets were subsidised, made possible by our grants and donations. It was a sell out – 55 people attended. Deemed a huge success, we will look to provide more free or subsidised social events in the future.

Reports and Future updates can be found on the News and Events page here

and finally…..our Befriending Service.

We are very pleased to confirm our Community Volunteer Training Coordinator – Katherine Crowther who joined us in March. Kathy is a people person, has great empathy and an understanding of the challenges faced by many people in the communities of Rother.
She comes with a wealth of experience across training volunteers, marketing, access to funding and governance.

We are confident with Kathy setting up and running this service that a soft launch will be scheduled for June.

Future updates can be found here  

and on our Facebook, Instagram and Next Door pages.