Aim

We are raising money to support our core services to provide hot meals night packs and clothing to support to the homeless in Southend.

ABOUT ME:

I have been a volunteer at the One Love Project for the last six years and am also the Fund Raising Officer for the charity. I have seen the exponential rise in the demand for our core services which are primarily to provide hot meals, overnight packs, access to showers and clean clothes. When I started in 2018 the numbers on a 'busy' night were around 60-70 guests through the door during a 90 minute window. On 16th September 2024 this was our record number at 172 guests during the same time frame. A near threefold increase and hence my determination to source support and finance to support this demands.  

MY IDEA

My vision is to continue being the primary non referral charity in Southend and Essex as we now have guests travelling in from around the county to access our services. We are also fortunate enough to enlist the support of dentists, nurses, sexual health advisors, hairdressers, chiropodists and mental health advocates in our quest to fully support our guests in need. 

MY TEAM

We are all one team. We have 105 volunteers and 3 trustees as well as 7 part time staff. All our staff also volunteer as this is how all of us started at the charity. We were awarded the Kings Award for Voluntary Services this year which is an exceptional achievement for a very small charity in their first year of nomination.  The commitment, dedication and passion for the welfare of our guests and each other is exemplary and paramount to its strong reputation and standing in the local community.

HOW WILL WE USE THE MONEY.

We provide emergency food parcels, vouchers for food, clothes for job interviews, debt advice, support with accessing the right benefits in a caring and non judgemental environment and improving the financial wellbeing of our service users.

To improve the amount of resources that we can acquire to help our guests. The call for good nutritious food and hard wearing , waterproof clothing and footwear is urgently in demand. We sometimes have to place our guests in emergency  temporary accommodation such as B & B's and hotels to ensure their safety and wellbeing. This payment comes from our own limited and hard earned funds and can impact on how we can fulfill our core services in respect of this. 

We work tirelessly through fund raising events, writing funding bids and enlisting the help of local businesses in order to continue. We are not a commissioned service or do not receive any local authority support for our core services. Everything is self generated and self perpetuated.  

This project will help with the financial well being ideology of Aviva in the respect that if our service can help cover the basic costs of day to day life then this will allow our service users to have more disposable income to allocate to other necessities of life such as energy bills, rent and other requirements.

This project successfully funded on 11th February 2025