Lifeshare’s team were hard at work this August to deliver support. The month was not without its challenges as some of our partner services close during August and many of our volunteers take well-deserved vacations. This August also had the additional challenge of us recruiting a new Respite Coordinator to run, not only our Weekend Breakfast Project, but also our new Friday Breakfast which will begin at the end of September. None of these things prevented us from working hard and making sure support got to those who needed it.
Our frontline staff coordinated with their clients with 369 phone contacts! We also worked together with partner agencies to complete 14 housing applications. We’ve also attended 14 doctor’s appointments, 8 court appearances, 33 agency meetings and 20 benefits applications.
The Manchester Digital Collective, powered by Lifeshare has been hard at work developing workshop offerings for the Autumn in collaboration with the Pankhurst Centre. These Digital Skills classes for Women will be on Wednesday evenings throughout September. Throughout the month we also distributed 480GB of data as well as 10 mobile devices, one laptop, and one tablet.
Our Weekend Breakfast Project has been increasingly busy. In August we hit an all-time high of 76 guests at the project in one day. During the month we served 652 hot breakfasts. Our fantastic volunteer team also gave out 98 takeaway meals, 57 wellbeing packs, and 51 dental hygiene packs. We have repeatedly given out our entire stock of sleeping bags, with 23 handed out but demand for many more. From our clothing stores, we’ve handed out 123 pairs of socks, 90 pairs of underwear, 69 jumpers, 49 pairs of joggers, and 41 coats. We have also been able to provide 19 hot showers. We are completely out of sleeping bags so if you have any gently used sleeping bags you won’t use, please consider donating as demand is high. If you want to send one to us you can utilise our partners Give Today.
It has been a challenging month with increased demand for our food support as well as hot weather conditions to contend with, but the Lifeshare team of staff and volunteers have done an amazing job and we are so proud of what we have accomplished! We are looking for more volunteers to support our Weekend Breakfasts as well as our Friday offering as we expand out services to meet the needs of our city. If you are interested in volunteering please fill out an application today at this link.
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