James Foy is a volunteer at Colne Citadel and he began feeding a hot meal to the homeless on Sundays over 6 weeks ago. He’s been making 40-50 curries, mainly funded from his own pocket. Colne Citadel helped James out and now he's giving something back (read his story below). It's been incredible to see the kind of work people have been doing over the last month or two, so to be able to help support the kind of work that people like James is doing is truly special. The Alpkit Foundation have been able to help a little towards ingredients and supplies to support James cook up more curries. We have deliberately shifted the focus of where we are allocating funds to help smaller, direct action projects tackling issues caused by the Covid-19 situation, trying to make what resources the Alpkit Foundation does have make as much difference as it can.
James was first introduced to Colne Citadel by Inspire. He was very poorly and lonely after a tragic event 3 years previously. As he came to the Citadel more, he met a great circle of friends, these friends would become very important to James as they kept in touch with him when he was feeling suicidal. James became an alcoholic, drinking heavily and felt in despair. It was at this point he was sent to Oak House in Burnley, a place that specialises in mental health care.
James credits the Citadel as having saved his life. The Citadel counselling helped James slowly rehabilitate and now James states his mission that he wants to give back to the Citadel what they gave him, a purpose and a mission to help others less fortunate.
Colne Citadel is a charity operating in a community centre in Market Place in Colne Town Centre, aiming to improve the lives of local residents by reducing social isolation in a safe caring environment. Open to all members of the community without prejudice and working closely with other local projects such as Elisha House, a local residential non profit recovery from addiction facility, they support those whose lives are affected by disabilities, mental illness and addiction.
We’ve now supported over 40 projects now and despite the fact that we may be getting a glimmer of being able to spend more time enjoying the outdoors we are still receiving large numbers of applications for support which shows the move out of lockdown is looking like a remaining slow process for many.
So we continue to work on making our resources stretch for as long as possible and make as much difference as we can. While we’ve shifted focus slightly in terms of the community projects we’ve been supporting over the last few weeks, we’re also conscious that as this does unfurl then there are going to be a large number of projects that have perhaps a more direct alignment with the Alpkit Foundations aims that will be facing even bigger obstacles to helping people go nice places and do good things. So; once again any extra funding we can receive, just adds to the support we can offer going forwards.