February at New Beginnings Reading
We’re celebrating this week at New Beginnings Reading - spring is in the air, we have a new Centre Manager and based on what the Prime Minister said we are looking forward to reopening all of our services once social distancing restrictions are lifted.
We have had a wonderful start to the year. In the first two months we have given away food provisions to 1,495 people and 1,374 dependants. In January, our Clothing and Toiletries service saw 88 guests being service, and that rose to 125 in February.
Meet Nicole Noack, the Centre Manager at the Queens Arms
We continue to grow as a charity, and in that vein we have taken on our very first member of staff. Nicole Noack is the new Centre Manager and will be taking a leading role in the day to day running of the Queens Arms. We wholeheartedly welcome her to the team and are excited at this new development.
Changes are already underway in the Queens Arms, with Ikea kindly donating racking so the Community Fridge is much easier to navigate. It’s shown us that our stocks are low for a number of items. If you’re able to help then please have a look at our Amazon wishlist which has the items we most need on it.
Service Update
We have moved the Wednesday Community Fridge from 12pm to 1pm for families and the elderly. The Community Fridge still operates on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 6pm to 7pm with hot and fresh food for those who need it.
Making a Difference on BBC Radio Berkshire
We were delighted to be featured in BBC Radio Berkshire Making a Difference on the Andrew Peach show on 25th Feb, you can listen at 2.55mins in.
Thank yous
Lots of thank yous this month for all of the incredibly generous donations we’ve received. These include:
Thanks to Lush for the wonderful donations
NVIDIA who through their global holiday campaign raised over $3million for charities around the world from employee donations and fund matching. New Beginnings Reading was fortunate enough to be awarded £4,000.
Sainsburys for picking us for their Help Brighten a Million Christmases Campaign and the £50 voucher for Christmas shopping.
LUSH Reading for lots of lovely smelling toiletries for our Monday night clothing and toiletries service.
Lions Club Reading who have been collecting essential items around Reading for us. Thanks to them and to everyone who donated.
Pepsico for the snacks that keep people going.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport has awarded us a grant for £2,000 to be spent on the continuation of projects supporting those impacted by the Covid-19 crisis.
New Beginnings Reading have received further donations from the Penta Hotel Reading as part of their Penta Gives campaign. We received thermal socks, jeans, umbrellas as part of their campaign. Thank you Wimple and the team at Penta Hotels.
We also want to thank Addington School for supporting New Beginnings Reading. Their Santa's dash raised an impressive £332 for New Beginnings Reading.
The wonderful Trixie has challenged herself to run every day this year to raise money for New Beginning. On behalf of everyone at New Beginnings we would like to thank Trixie for her kind and generous efforts!! Without people like you Trixie we wouldn’t be able to help those in need. If you would like to support Trixie’s journey follow @trixierunseveryday and click on the link in her bio to find out more and donate.
Our regular food donation heroes - Hillsong Reading, Costco Reading, Lidl, Cobbs Farm Shop, NFU Mutual and FINK Street Food and Food for All.
Pride of Reading Nomination
Thanks to Pepsico for the filling snacks
We were delighted to have been nominated for the Pride of Reading Awards. We’ve been nominated for the Volunteer/s Of The Year Award, which is sponsored by AB Walker & Son Ltd Funeral Directors. The nominator said, 'I am nominating New Beginnings, as throughout this year they have not only helped the homeless community by providing meals, clothing and equipment but helped them be as safe as they possibly can.”
A very noble New Beginnings
New Beginnings Reading Chairperson and founder Grace Gomez is featured in Field Seymour Parkes monthly podcast with solicitor Rou Wu. They discuss how the charity helps address the real shame which is not asking for help, but where there is no help when help is needed; the virtuous cycle of those receiving a hand and wanting to lend a hand and how the charity helps those falling through the state net.
Volunteer Thank You
We want to thank our wonderful team of volunteers who have given so many hours of their time to run all of our services. Special thanks to Chris and Alan for making so many wonderful improvements to the Queens Arms. Thank you all. And of course our very generous supporters, we couldn’t do it without you all.
Essential supplies collected by the Lions Club of Reading