Great Aycliffe Community Aid Partnership held their regular monthly meeting on Monday 7th August.
Gill Boyle Support Co-ordination for Stonham/ Homegroup shared a little about the work she did for the organisation she works for. Gill explained she holds ‘Drop In’ Sessions on a Wednesday afternoon at the Food Bank/Places of Welcome, held at St Clare’s Church.
The support she offers includes benefit advice, (unclaimed or unable to access), housing, health, finance and any area of support or guidance. People requiring help could self refer and don’t have to be out of work.
It was evident from her presentation there would be partners in GACAP who could refer people to her. The talk was very informal but allowed partners present to find out more about what she does. For more information contact her on Gill.Boyle@homegroup.org.uk
Town Councillor Sally Symons introduced “helpful hands” and explained she was recycling School Uniforms for all schools in Newton Aycliffe and some in Darlington.
The Thames Centre has been well used over the past month for awareness and fundraising by Baby Basic’s, Harvest Church for Kids Zone, Breast Cancer and Trussell Trust Food Bank. All partners indicated they were partners of GACAP.
Alison Firby from Trussel Trust gave an interesting informative talk about the Foodbank. The local collection point was at St Clare’s Church. Greggs offered “goodies/treats” for people coming in twice a week. Tesco too were a tremendous help to the Foodbank. Apart from the weekly food Tesco offer, they also support two days a year with an extra collection is store for food and cash donations.
Sheena from Baby Basic’s asked for thanks to be minuted to Kath and Alison, saying the number of referrals she had received from the Foodbank at Baby Basic’s had increased significantly recently, also ‘Xcel Local ‘was supporting her charity which demonstrated how well GACAP partners work together.
Kath from the Foodbank thanked Tesco, the Rotary Club, GACAP partners and Newton News, who had supported the recent Food collection. On the day a record £495 was collected and 1.25 ton of food donated.
Val said her group had recently been to Whitby this being why there was fund raising events for AARMS.
Helen from Tesco said they would be holding a collection for Mark Hammond a young 11 year old boy who was very ill. Three local stores were giving support.
A Fun Day is being held in Tesco car park this Saturday for Diabetes and the British Heart Foundation.
Thanks were expressed to DISC for the use of their building for hosting GACAP meetings and to partners and speakers for attending. Anyone needing more information about GACAP should contact the secretary on secretary.gacap@gmail.com
Photo: Gill Boyle
