Since January 2013 Crossroads Care Hertfordshire North have been the Comet Charity of the Year with weekly stories, news items, information pages and photos on page 6 of the paper all highlighting the work of Crossroads Care in helping unpaid family carers. This is the last article as charity of the year.
Achieving Charity of the Year status has meant that every week for a whole year the charity was featured in the Newspaper. Sheelagh Taylor, Chief Executive believes that this regular exposure has had an impact on services adding to the following results:
• Increased awareness about services we offer – referrals to our service in Stevenage and North Herts have more than doubled in the past 12 months
• Recruited more volunteers – the charity was supported by 19 volunteers in the year who provided 1675 hours of voluntary support
• Recruited more support workers with 22 new staff working in the area
• Increased take up at carers cafes – Numbers attending increased by nearly 30%
• Provided over 9,000 hours of care and support in the past year
• 263 clients in the area are currently receiving our service a significant increase on this time last year
It has a busy and exciting year. Councillor Jane Gray, Chairman of North Herts District Council chose Crossroads Care Hertfordshire North as her Charity of the Year. Her year of office continues until April 2014 but so far she has been a huge supporter of the Charity.
In a similar way Staff at the Hitchin branch of Sainsbury’s supermarket picked Crossroads Care as their Charity of the year and have been lending support with a range of initiatives.
Prepared to Care? Was the theme for Carers Week in 2013. To celebrate Carers Week Crossroads Care ran its biggest ever and most successful programme of events this time round and was able to raise awareness through extensive coverage in the Comet.
Support from a number of local businesses and organisations was invaluable. Not only through funding bids but also support in kind, for example catering students at North Herts College baked a Crossroads Cake for Carers week and provided a lavish array of individual cakes for Cllr. Jane Gray’s Civic Service. Many other organisations including MBDA Systems, The Cooperative Funeralcare, Asda, Waitrose, Stevenage Borough Council and the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, La Concha, The Croft and many more have all helped us to make 2013 a very successful year.
Sheelagh Taylor, Chief Executive of Crossroads Care Hertfordshire North said “This exposure has been amazing and has enabled us to raise the profile of the Charity Being the Comet Charity of the Year has given us a wonderful opportunity to promote the work that we do and to raise awareness about the services we can offer to give carers a break. We know that more carers in Stevenage and North Herts are now getting a break, more carers know about our Carers’ Cafes and more volunteers are signed up to help us out. On behalf of the Board of Trustees I would like to thank Darren Isted, Editor for making us the Comet Charity of the Year.”
In response Darren Isted said “It has been an honour and a privilege to have support Crossroads Care Hertfordshire North as the Comet’s Charity of the Year. By giving the charity the platform to highlight its work it has given our readers a better understanding of carers and the support that they need. I wish Crossroads well for the future and we will continue to support them in the work that they do”
If you want to find out more about the services offered by Crossroads Care Hertfordshire North visit the website at www.crossroadshn.org.uk or call the team on 01462 455578.