Love Ipswich is an organisation that aims to reach the needs of our town.
Ipswich, Suffolk is a town which like many others in the country is experiencing high levels of poverty and a rise in youth crime. A recent report stated that 1 in 3 children are living in poverty in Ipswich.
The aim of Love Ipswich is to reach the needs of the town practically and to make people feel valued and loved. This is actualised in a number of different ways; we run ‘Shine’ self-esteem courses to young girls of High School age in local Secondary schools, complete practical works in the community such as gardening and painting.
Our main project every year is our ‘Hamper Appeal’ – we create luxury hampers filled with a Christmas dinner for a family of four, coupled with a £10 supermarket voucher used to buy perishable items.
We work with local charities, social services, local organisations and local schools to generate a list of referrals for the recipients of the hampers.
We have run this project for the last seven years and last year we were thrilled to make 232 hampers, each hamper is designed for a family of four- so over 900 people impacted.
The hampers have made a monumental difference in the lives of the individuals and families which received them, one volunteer who personally delivered one of the hampers last year commented that:
We delivered a hamper to a family really struggling with a number of health issues. The father was unable to work and this was having ongoing financial implications. When they received the hamper the mother cried and couldn’t speak for a long period of time, when she came to she said “it feels like it has been given to us from a friend”.
Every year we receive far more referrals than we can fund hampers. This year we are aiming to distribute over 300 hampers within Ipswich and Suffolk. To achieve this big ambition we are asking for your support, however big or small. We hope that you will consider supporting our Hamper Appeal in 2023.
We have workplace and school packs which help people to launch a collection in their workplace. We also have two fundraising quizzes; 6 October (online) and on the 17 November (Kesgrave High School) both beginning at 8pm- teams need to be booked.
If you have any questions or need any more information please do not hesitate to contact me at franmarcus@proclaimers.com.