We met with Stephanie from Alice Charity, they help and support disadvantaged and vulnerable families in Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent.
We've just added a donation link to our local marketplace.
This means you can easily help local families in our community with just one click to give any amount big or small and you'll know that your donation will help to provide essential help and support to a local family that is struggling.
Tell us all about Alice Charity
My name is Steph and I've worked at the charity for just over 2 years and I'm the fundraising manager here. Alice Charity was set up to help local families in crisis to help them move forward to a brighter future. Our fundraising team have to raise enough funds to keep Alice Charity going, which means raising around £45,000 per month. It's a big goal and it's very tough at the moment with all what's happening in the world with the cost of living crisis. The people in Stoke-on-Trent are so generous though you won't find a nicer kinder bunch of people.
When was Alice Charity set up?
It was set up about 10 years ago by Mum and daughter, Steph and Emily and they're the most lovely people you'd ever meet. Emily was going through a tough time herself and relied on her parents for help, she realised how tough it would be if she didn't have that support and wanted to help other people. She started off by organising toddler groups and it's grown and grown since then.
We now have a food bank where we support hundreds of families, people just ring up there's no questions asked. If they have children living with them under the age of 18 they can have a food parcel for three days for everybody living in the house.
How do you raise money for the charity?
We have a lot of different income streams, we run events such as our it's a knockout event. We invite lots of local companies to help us and donate its lots of fun, they all dress up run around and get soaking wet and full of bubbles. We have lots of fundraising stalls such as name the teddy bear, guess how many sweets there are in the jar and a tombola.
We have regular donors where businesses can sign up and we ask them to make a donation every month, individuals can sign up to our family fiver scheme. People pay £5 standing order every month, lots of fivers every month all added together makes a huge difference. We also apply for grants and trust donations which has been a big help too.
Tell everyone about the people who are struggling who you help
We have a whole different variety of people, there are some really tragic cases. Only a few weeks ago I answered the phone to a lady who been a victim of domestic violence, she literally had nothing but her baby with her. We managed to find her a house but she had nothing in the house like a bed, kettle, sofa etc. We arrange a find donated items to help and give some structure back into people lives. Recently with the surge in fuel costs we always ask people to donate food in tins, people are so down on their luck that ask for our help some literally can't afford to warm up tinned pies so we make sure we have tinned fish such as tuna which doesn't need to be heated up.
It can be that they are single parents or have sick or disabled children or ladies who's husband have left them and they have children pre school age. We've had nurses come to us who have been diagnosed with cancer that can't work anymore. It is a whole spectrum of so many different people and there for the grace of god go all of us.
What does the future hold for Alice Charity?
We've just taken on this old building in Merrial Street in Newcastle which used to be a church, as you can see it's a huge building and we plan to use it for room hire such as events, zumba and yoga classes. We have rooms that can be used as board rooms for local business to rent by the hour or the day, there's also a big kitchen that could be used for a catering company to run from our premises. There's so many new ideas on the horizon and it's all very exciting to see what we can do.
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You Can Watch Our Video With Steph Here
