When you only have £1000 (A HUGE thank-you to Newcastle Building Society for this grant to our club!) to spend it’s best to hit the January sales to get the best bargains to put together at least 12 NEW START BAGS. Now into our 3rd year and aiming for 100 bags for Acting Superintendent Claire Wheatley Here is a summary of our actions so far and an update from Northumbria Police.
- 29th October 2016 21 bags given to Claire from several clubs in our region region
- 12th December 2016 – 12 bags donated to Claire thanks to donations by generous individuals
- £1500 grant from GREGGS FOUNDATION
- June 2017 – last of 40 bags handed over to Claire, 8 of which were used to support Romanian
- £3000 grant from NEWCASTLE BUILDING SOCIETY & COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
- February 2018 -President Judy accepts our award from Newcastle Building Society
- March 20th 2018 – first of 10 out of 40 bags presented to Claire
- May 2018 – Claire updates the club about where our bags have been used as 10 more handed open at our annual OPEN EVENING.
- October 12th 2018 – the final bags given to Claire making a total of 80
- December 2018 – another grant – £1000 from NEWCASTLE BUILDING SOCIETY
Quotes from participants of New Start Bags
‘amazed that strangers would choose to help me when they didn’t know me or were my family’
‘was better than Christmas’
‘gave me my life back’
