We have a wide variety of charities listed on the app, from national charities everyone will have heard about to the small, local ones making a real difference in communities like your's. BetterPoints users have donated £303.64 over the last couple of years to one such amazing charity, We Are Beams - who support disabled children and their families in Kent and Medway.
The disabled children and young people who access their services will typically have at least one learning difficulty, complex health needs, physical or sensory impairment, challenging behaviour, Autism or severe ADHD. Their work is divided up into four key areas: Short Breaks Services, Family Advice Service, Direct Payment Service and Dragon’s Retreat Short Break Unit. At any one time they support 450 families.
Since the COVID-19 Pandemic began almost a year ago, their Dragon's Retreat had remained open for children to have a break, where 710 overnight stays for 53 children took place since re-opening at the end of April. They are restricted now with numbers and can only take in six children overnight with lots of additional safeguarding.
I wanted to hear directly from the charity about the impact the Pandemic had on them. I spoke to Julia Hussain, the Corporate Fundraising Manager. I asked about their involvement with our app and whether they have any specific fundraising targets for the year.
Julia explained “All of our fundraising events have been cancelled, so we have re-focused our efforts to virtual events, trusts and foundations. We have suffered a significant loss of income.”
For BetterPoints users it is so easy to get active and then donate some or all of their BetterPoints to charities like We Are Beams.
We also asked Julia why BetterPoints is such a good source of donations for them:
“Betterpoints is a great source of income for us as we are able to promote fitness and wellbeing, which for a charity that is based on supporting families and their mental health is really important, at the same time as receiving much needed funds from the local community.” - Julia Hussain.
We are really pleased to be helping local charities meet some of their tough fundraising targets with the generosity of BetterPoints users like you.
Kerri
BetterPoints Team