The Gingerbread Centre
The Gingerbread Centre works to support homeless families through personalised, structured support. Established in 1977 in Stoke-on-Trent, the Centre provides round the clock supported accommodation for homeless families from across North Staffordshire.
The charity has two accommodation centres, Rothesay Court, in Normacot, which can house up to 22 families at any one time and Catherine Court, in Hanley for young parents with seven single parent flats and four two bedroomed flats.
The mission of the charity is to provide much more than just a roof. Families stay at the Gingerbread Centre for around 18 months to two years and the aim is to empower and help them build a sustainable future.
The Gingerbread’s fundraising programme is crucial to ensure the charity can provide a high quality, varied programme of opportunities for residents and an appeal is underway to raise vital funds for a mental health worker after grant funding came to an end.
Mental health and wellbeing support is crucial to the Gingerbread Centre’s aim to support homeless families. The Gingerbread Centre’s Chair of Trustees Nigel Howle said: “Ensuring mental wellbeing is vital if our families are going to thrive. Like any responsible charity, the Gingerbread Centre holds an appropriate level of reserves and we are committed to funding the mental health worker until the end of the financial year. But that situation is clearly not sustainable and, while we continue to work to obtain new grant funding, we are now launching a public appeal.
“We are appealing to charitable individuals and companies to support the Gingerbread Centre Mental Health Matters campaign. Individual donors can become Friends of the Gingerbread Centre by pledging as little as £5 a month. Businesses can also join the Mental Health Matters appeal and pledge £20 a month and we are appealing to larger businesses to donate £1,000 each from their CSR budgets.”
For more information contact Julie Levert by telephoning 01782 973491, or email: julie.levert@gingerbreadcentre.co.uk.
See The Gingerbread Centre website here.
