(Last update: September 23 2009)

Please help us

There are many ways in which you can help our work: by giving a gift of money, by supplying us with gifts of equipment/consumables/etc, or by working with us.

Financial donations - a big thank you to all those who have helped us - this lifts our hearts as well as our finances.

Our grateful thanks to the following donors:

Bristol Rotary Club, Burges Salmon, Hilden Charitable Fund, Hope Chapel Bristol, Individual donations, John James Bristol Foundation, J & M Britton Charitable Trust, Lloyds TSB Foundation, Radley Trust, Redland (Bristol) Quaker Meeting, Southall Trust, Van Neste Foundation.

Thanks to the generosity of the above people, we have now raised all but £18,000 of the required salary funding for 2009.

Download our gift pack: New Friends (printable PDF version) or New Friends (emailable Microsoft Word version).

We are still asking for 600 people to donate £6 pcm, using gift aid, where appropriate.  A big ”thank you” to all those who have helped us so far. 

Housing Benefit pays our basic costs, but it is staff who offer human contact and warmth that makes all the difference.

Our clients come to us damaged, chaotic, unmanageable and afraid. Learning to trust (sometimes again, and sometimes for the first time) is vital. This takes dedicated staff who are qualified and able to support clients. We help each other heal.

We have many, wonderful volunteers. Our Trustees are unpaid, we have volunteer counsellors, mentors, art teachers, a cookery teacher, support workers, DIY men. Without these generous people we could not offer the high level of support that we do, but we must have paid staff, too.

Once we have paid  support staff, any extra money will be used to help residents in need. 

Residents arriving straight from prison rarely have their benefits sorted out. This means waiting for weeks before benefits arrive, and we aim to offer an interest free loan to cover this very stressful period as it is very difficult to get through to request a crisis loan. We try and try and try and when eventually we do get through, we often get cut off. More positively, it may be put towards the cost of a college course, towards travel for a resident who cannot afford to visit their children, towards a bus pass enabling residents to visit family and attend Fellowship Meetings (AA, NA etc), hospital and so on. Once we helped a resident to buy a musical instrument!

We pledge to

• keep our website uptodate so you know what is going on.
• use all donated money to help our residents to achieve the best possible lives for themselves, knowing that this will help everyone in our community.
• make every £1 donated really work – not to waste money.

We will not…

• waste money on glossy reports which we then post to you.
• send you begging letters when you already donate

Please do contact us if you would like to comment on our work or on the website: stvincentshousing@btconnect. com

 

St Vincent’s really works. We are in Bristol. We welcome visitors. We are an independent charity.

Other gifts

We always need mugs, teaspoons and forks. (Mysteriously knives, plates etc don’t seem to vanish like forks and teaspoons.)

We currently need good quality single bedding: duvets, pillows, bottom sheets, duvet covers and pillow slips.

Work with us

We are currently seeking new Trustees to join us. We would especially welcome someone with experience of the drug and alcohol field.