Families charity Home-Start Wessex is delighted to welcome Darren Lewis as its Community Fundraising & Events Officer. This new role has been created to add further weight to their community fundraising efforts as the charity works hard to keep up with rising demand.
Home-Start Wessex volunteers offer friendship, practical support and advice to families who are facing difficulties, including poor mental health, depression, disability, domestic abuse, bereavement, isolation and multiple births. Over the last year, the charity has transformed 1,682 lives, helping a record 501 families.
Originally from Poole, Darren has spent the last twenty years working in the Property sector. When Darren and his wife welcomed their twins seventeen years ago, his family received Home-Start support.
“The one-to-one home support that Home-Start provided made a huge difference,” said Darren. “Simple things like getting out of the house become a mission when you have two babies at one time. An extra pair of hands meant my wife could take the twins out to see other children and meet mums in a similar position to her.
Giving back to the people who helped us many years ago feels great. I know what a life-changing difference it makes. You only have to walk around our local streets, and you can see how much support is needed.
In my role, I look forward to meeting many new people, working on new partnerships, raising awareness of our work, and securing donations where possible. From a simple chocolate Easter egg to a cheque for thousands of pounds, every donation makes a difference. We are working hard to keep up with demand and help the local families that need us, but we can’t do this alone. We need the support of the whole community.”
Kathy Fryatt-Banks, CEO of Home-Start Wessex, said, “I am delighted to welcome Darren to our growing team. Since 2022, we have doubled the number of families we have supported. We have doubled our geographic reach to include West Dorset. We have grown from running four specialist family support groups in 2022 to 10 groups spread across the region, including two groups for homeless mums aged 18-25 in hostels. Fundraising is more important than ever to enable us to keep providing life-changing services.”
Home-Start Wessex supports families in the Purbecks, Swanage, Weymouth, Dorchester, Bridport, the whole of the BCP Council area, including Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch, across the borders of Hampshire and Wiltshire, going as far north as Cranborne and Fordingbridge and as far east as New Milton.
Their service is in more demand than ever. If you can commit to 2-3 hours each week to help, please contact heidi@homestartwessex.org.uk.