Loughborough High help Falcon Support with massive donation

Thanks to Loughborough High School and their amazing fundraising efforts, led by their charity prefects the whole school worked together to add £6,700.45

Falcon Support Service’s recent #festiveshelter appeal to provide emergency beds to the homeless over the festive period has been a resounding success, with an amazing response from the local community and businesses from across all of Leicestershire, raising a total of £4,185.95, which was just short of the £6,000 target.

However, thanks to Loughborough High School and their amazing fundraising efforts, led by their charity prefects the whole school worked together to add £6,700.45 to this total, meaning #festiveshelter has raised a staggering £10,886.40. Louise Shipman, Charity Coordinator at Loughborough High School said:

““Supporting charities in our own community is extremely important to us and our pupils and staff have worked very hard to fundraise during the Autumn term, led by a team of pupil charity representatives and senior charity prefects Katie and Mansi. Combatting homelessness and the help that Falcon Support Services provides is a cause that our pupils feel impassioned about, so everyone has really got behind it. Each form and staff organised nearly seventy events last term, including numerous pizza sales, cake sales, teddy bear raffles, discos, movie nights, a dodgeball match and a staff pantomime to name a few! We are enormously proud of our pupils’ commitment and the phenomenal amount they have raised.””

Falcon Support Services would like to extend their gratitude to everyone else who has supported us including; Hinckley and Bosworth District Council, Thermo Fisher Scientific, DCI-Artform, Your Future Solutions, Loughborough Dynamo, Loughborough Building Society, Pinfold Medical Practice, Loughborough Students Union, Rawlins Academy, Loughborough College, Booth Wood Primary School, Queniborough School, Lime Tree Nursery, Arm Ltd, Tarmac, Poplar Running Club, and the Co-op for their donations as well as some groups that wished to remain anonymous and many many more.

Sarah Whannell, Centre Manager:

“We were overwhelmed with the generosity and this has allowed us to accommodate 19 people on the festive shelter beds, who would otherwise have been homeless”

A service user who used one of the emergency beds emailed to share his thanks, and this is what he said:

““I just wanted to say thank you for your help, I came to you in somewhat of a crisis and you showed me a great deal of sympathy. I was nervous about the Falcon Centre, you hear stories about these places and the reputations alone are enough to fill you with fear. They are all nonsense, I was shown compassion, safety and support from the moment I rang the bell. The staff were fantastic. They clearly do the best they can with resources they have, and they go above and beyond to help those in need. Thank you.””

In addition to the Emergency Beds, Falcon Support Services ran their annual shoe box appeal and put on a Christmas Lunch at the Falcon Centre which was opened up to vulnerable members of the community. With 58 attendees for Christmas lunch all received a memorable meal and Christmas gift thanks to the support of volunteers.

Rachel Hall, Head of Service Development:

“We are honoured to have made a difference to those that need us. We would like to say a big thank you for the support from the community as well as the contribution of the volunteers and staff members who made this all happen. With the additional monies we will ring fence this to support rough sleepers through our Community Drop In service which is reliant on support from the local community. ”

If you wish to donate to help the homeless further donations can be made through their Donate page.