2023 has been a year to remember
We started in March – commemorating World Water Day by putting ‘p’ into pots every time we used water during that day. And it was a lot of times! We raised £60 and were able to but 2 sanitary stations for midwives and new mums from Water Aid.
Our weekly ‘drop in’ cafe which is now in its 5th year. It’s held at a local library and we have about 15 regular friends who come and enjoy a cuppa, cake and lots of chat.
Our £1 preloved clothes sales. We held 3 this year and raised over £1300 altogether. This enables us to fund much of the work we do. They are very busy days with people queuing to get in and gathering lots of sensational bargains. We have clothes that have never been worn still with their labels on and clothes that are ‘labels’ – Stella McCartney, Phase 8, Coast and many, many more. We are also saving clothes from going to landfill.
We started a new project this year. We each fill a bag with 10 of the same sustainable food items to donate to Ashton Food Aid. We aimed to fill 10 bags so called it our ’10 in 10′ collection but we were being modest as we managed to give at least 15 bags at each collection.
Our Christmas Gift Bag collection for the Salvation Army. We’ve filled 30 Christmas bags for the Salvation Army to give to the homeless for many years but this year we were able to give 30 gift bags to the children at the local domestic violence refuge too. We couldn’t leave the mums out and got 30 mums a gift each too.
In summer we held an afternoon tea in aid of Lancashire Women. We raised £387 at the tea but made the total up to a lovely round £500.
There were 3 roadshows during the year to raise awareness of modern day slavery run by the Pan Lancashire Anti Slavery Partnership (PLASP). We walked the streets of Preston, Leyland and Blackpool carrying placards.
We helped organise a Women’s Health Conference and a choir concert to help support women and children still in Ukraine.
We’ve collected loose change, postcards, postage stamps and spectacles for various charities.
We are sponsoring a ‘sister’ for the Women4Women charity.
We gave cash donations Galloways Society for the Blind, Bamber Bridge Methodist Church, International Aid Trust, Hope for Justice, The Friendship Foundation, Partners in Education Swaziland, The Haemophilia Society, D of E Award Scheme and St Catherine’s Hospice.
More than all that – we celebrated our 85th anniversary and got together with a lovely lunch.
And of course, we have had a few social get togethers because, besides all of the above – we are friends.
