Lottery Community Fund helps to support Angels

A Stoke-on-Trent charity has been awarded more than £16,000 from the National Lottery Community Fund to help them with their Covid-19 response.

Helping Angels Charitable Association provide support to vulnerable adults, children and their families to reach their full potential by providing independent activities. But when the pandemic struck usual activities were suspended and the charity had to adapt its services. In recent months staff members at Helping Angels CA have been delivering shopping, providing vital food parcels, hygiene packs and cleaning products as well as doing emotional wellbeing phone calls and check ups and virtual coffee mornings and classes.

The National Lottery Community Fund have now granted £16,408 to the charity to help them continue with their emergency response over the next six months.

Charity Manager Natasha Gratton said: “Everyone at Helping Angels has been working really, really hard during these tough times and we have been doing everything we possibly can to support our adults. Receiving the grant from the National Lottery Community Fund is going to be a big help to us now as it means we can support more people locally. As a charity we reply on community fundraising and many of our events have been cancelled. ”

Helping Angels Charitable Association is currently based at Burslem Lodge, but is due to move into Hanley Park Lodge along with Helping Angels LTD where they plan to run their inclusive projects for the community.

Natasha adds: “Moving into Hanley Lodge will mean we will have a lot more space in order to run our activities and offer the support to more vulnerable adults, children and families locally. Since lockdown the amount of people we support has doubled. We want to create a safe place that the whole community can access and use including a sensory room and an adapted kitchen. There is quite a bit of work which needs doing on the Hanley Lodge from painting the walls to planting flowers in the outside garden area. We will also require furniture and kitchen items to make it accessible to all and we would welcome the help from anyone who thinks they may be able to help us with this.”

If you know anybody who needs the support of helping angels or who would benefit from their support, or you are a local business who could support them to make up care packages please contact Natasha or Suzanne at he*************@*****ok.com or call them on 01782 249703.