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Members of Canterbury City Council’s Culture and Communications Department kindly organised a Harvest Festival donation with members of their team donating harvest gifts of food and drink. The team nominated Kent homeless charity Porchlight to receive the gifts and they were presented to service users at the Whitstable Road adult supported accommodation on 25 September 2008.
Rebecca Mumford from the City Council who organised the donation said, “The team remembered the idea of harvest giving from school and we thought what better place to donate food than to a homeless charity. We are happy to have helped.”
Karen Fleet, Service Manager for the hostel, said, “We are very grateful to the Culture and Communications team for their donation. Our service users are extremely vulnerable members of society and any help and support they can receive in their day to day lives helps no end in helping their journey to independent living.”
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Notes to the Editor:
1. Porchlight is an independent local charity that works to support single, vulnerable homeless people or those at risk of homelessness. It was established in 1974 as Canterbury Cyrenians and works throughout Kent.
2. Porchlight has accommodation based projects in Canterbury, Dover, Ashford and Ramsgate. The outreach team works with street homeless people as well as supporting former homeless people in their own homes, to prevent them returning to street life. Other services support people in their own homes who are at risk of becoming homeless.
3. In 2007-8 Porchlight helped over 1,400 vulnerable people. Porchlight projects include:
Kent Outreach: Our street outreach team work across Kent including working within prisons to help offenders who will be released from prison homeless.
Young Persons Services: This includes a direct access hostel, longer stay hostel and shared house, providing support for a number years, until each individual is ready to live independently.
Mental Health: We run the only housing project in Kent specifically for people with enduring mental ill-health. We also have a young persons’ mental health service that enables young homeless people with mental health problems to better access the health services they need.
General Accommodation: We have hostels in Canterbury, Dover, Ashford and Ramsgate. They range in the levels of support provided from high support needs with staff available 24hrs a day, to medium support with staff available on a 9-5pm basis.
Floating Support: This is a preventative service that provides support to vulnerable people in their own home who are at risk of becoming homeless. Many of these clients have been through the hostel system and are almost ready to live independently but just need a little support every now and again.
Training and Service User Involvement: We have a team that works with people accessing any of our services and helps them develop their skills and education. We provide tailored training and encourage people to get involved in the running and improvement of their project, or volunteer on a more formal level in the organisation. Porchlight is committed to involving our service users throughout all the activities of the charity. They are actively encouraged to become involved in education, employment, volunteering and service user involvement opportunities.
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