Brr it has been a chilly one! We hope everyone is managing ok in the cold weather. Please remember there is support available if needed.
We unfortunately had sad news at the beginning of the month that one of our long standing volunteers had passed away. Joan joined us in 2011 and supported many of our families and contributed to our prep courses. She also enjoyed coming to our volunteer socials. Her husband Peter wanted us to know that she held Home-Start in high regard. She will be missed.
We were grateful to be able to hold volunteer socials this year and is was lovely to meet up with volunteers in different areas. We hope this allows volunteers the opportunity to get to know each other and feel part of a team.
At our Pendle volunteer social, Alan did a quiz for us and also read out a poem he had written to encourage others to volunteer. If you’d like to hear it being read by Alan please have a look at our Instagram page. We were also able to say a special thank you to two of our volunteers. Julia has been a volunteer with us for 8 years but is now retiring and Najma celebrated her 5 year anniversary with us. A huge thank you to both of them for the time they have given to supporting local families.
We have been very lucky to receive donations of toys, selection boxes, clothes and food from a variety of people and local businesses across East Lancashire. We have also received money donations too from local businesses. We are very grateful and the generosity shown helps us to support families and keep doing our work. A massive thank you to you all for your support.
We’ve had lots of fun at groups making Christmas crafts and then finishing off the year with Christmas parties! Lots of sausage rolls, cake, balloons and presents! Lovely to see everyone and thank you to all the families for being amazing and supporting our groups. There are going to be a few changes to our group timetable in the new year. We also have a couple of new groups starting so please keep checking our group timetable for the latest information. We are inviting anyone interested in volunteering at groups to a social at our office in Nelson on January 3rd. Please get in touch if you are interested in coming along and finding out more.
All that is left to say is we hope everyone has a lovely Christmas! Stay safe and we look forward to seeing you in 2023!