BLOG: New Beginnings receives £50,000 in grant money

June has been quite the special month here at New Beginnings. Government, corporate, and charitable grants are a huge part of how we keep our services running, and we’ve been honoured to receive £50,000 in grant money this month and last. We’d like to take a moment to thank these donors:

This money will be used to hire part-time night workers at the All Night Cafe and allow us to continue to provide services for the homeless in Reading and the greater Berkshire community.

You can read more about the grant from the Cadbury Foundation in this article from the Reading Chronicle.

Freshly cooked meals from foodparcels.org

The Reading Chronicle isn’t the only media outlet who has their eye on us. We’ve received several shout-outs on the BBC Radio Berkshire, specifically highlighting our new clothing and toiletries service.

The clothing and toiletries service runs alongside our Community Fridge on Tuesdays from 6-7pm. This is a great opportunity for those in need to pick up essentials, free of charge. We had 29 people served this week.

“It’s been welcomed by so many people...one gentlemen was so grateful for a new pair of socks, he had been wearing the same pair for five days,” said founder Grace Gomez during an interview with BBC Radio Berkshire.

Lots of donations from local sandwich supplier A Bit of Stick this week

If you’d like to help, you’re welcome to donate clothing, toiletries, and supplies. We’re especially in need of men’s jeans and trousers, shaving gel, razors, and both spray-on and roll-on deodorant.

In addition to those special announcements, we’d be remiss if we didn’t thank some of the amazing community donations we received throughout the week. This includes a massive pick up from Costco, another donation from the Lions Club of Reading, biriyani meals from foodparcels.org, and crisps and soda from PepsiCo, a donation from Marks and Spencers, fruit from Cobbs Farm and Nvidia, and regularly weekly volunteers from James Cowper Kreston.

Thank you to Jamme Masjid in Reading for the 50 hot chicken biriyani meals.

We were happy to see A Bit of Stick, who regularly donated unused sandwiches, baguettes, and hot foods to the Community Fridge. They donated loads of crisps and drinks.

And a special thank you to Fink Street Food for setting up a hot food gazebo and cooking their delicious food, even in a torrential rain storm!

Thanks to A Bit of Stick for their donations

Thanks to donations like these, we were able to serve 270 individuals in our Community Fridge effort.