Tag: Fresh Start

HOt HOt HOt news from Fresh Start!

FRESH_START_COOKER_APPEALAll the latest from Fresh Start, the resettlement charity based in Ferry Road Drive: 

Edinburgh’s leading resettlement charity is calling on city residents to dig deep this Christmas to ensure previously homeless families can have a ‘HO-t, HO-t, HO-t’ meal.

Fresh Start has ‘ignited’ its annual Cookers for Christmas appeal and is calling on 2,400 Capital residents to donate just £5 to help the charity provide cookers for 150 families and individuals. The charity needs less than 1% of Edinburgh residents to donate just £5 to its annual Cookers for Christmas Appeal to ensure it meets last year’s total.

Keith Robertson, Managing Director at Fresh Start, said: “Help make someone’s Christmas.  If one if every 200 people in Edinburgh donated just £5 to our appeal, we’d be able to provide cookers for 150 families.

“This year, thanks to our new cookers re-use project, we’ll be able to help more people than ever before – but we’re only able to do this with your help.”

He added: “Dickensian as it may sound, there will be families and individuals in Edinburgh this Christmas who sit down to a cold Christmas dinner. For families who have recently been housed, a cooker is often too expensive. But with your help we can ensure some of those households don’t have to sit down to a cold meal again.”

Keith Robertson added: “Help make someone’s Christmas by donating on our Fresh Start Cookers for Christmas Just Giving Page, and spread the word through social media using #cookersforchristmas”

The charity’s new innovative cooker re-use service means it will be able to help many more people than in previous years. Historically the Cookers for Christmas donations have used to buy new cookers but Fresh Start have opened a new service – The Food Station.

Launched in September, The Food Station hosts a new Electrical Workshop where the charity can now test donated cookers which will be passed onto clients, meaning it can increase the number of people it can help.

The Food Station is a wider project aimed at addressing health inequalities, with new Food Packs being prepared there, cooking and budgeting classes, and an allotment to provide food for the cooking classes.

Nearly 600 food packs have already been distributed to Edinburgh families and individuals since the launch of the new service  to ensure previously homeless households can enjoy a hot, home cooked meal when they move into their new home. 

The decision to deliver the new services around food came after people who had been homeless said they struggled to provide home cooked food for themselves and their families when they moved into a new home, due to the costs involved in setting up a house.

The charity also said the current economic climate played a big part in people facing difficulties feeding themselves and their families.

Speaking at the launch of the Food Station service, Keith Robertson said: “I am delighted we can build on the services we already have at Fresh Start and develop them under one roof. Thanks to funding from a variety of sources, we can now reach out to even more people who are going through the transition from being homeless to getting a new home.”

The innovative new services received praise from the Edinburgh’s Lord Provost Councillor Donald Wilson, who said: “Fresh Start has long been a part of the homelessness services in Edinburgh since it was set up in 1999, delivering a handful of packs to people who were homeless in the city.

“Since then it has become significant part of the solution for homeless people looking to settle into a new house, delivering around 2,000 Starter Packs each year and providing a range of services. This new Food Station and Food Pack service is an innovative development and will help people who have been homeless have a home cooked meal from the off, as well as teach them a range of new skills.”

The service will be run from new premises at Harrison Place, Edinburgh, which is owned by the Phoenix Club, a small charity supporting people with disabilities. The Food Station will house:

·         A new Electrical Workshop to test donated cookers, which will then be passed on to clients.

·         A new Food Packs service which will give individuals and families the basics to make a hot, cooked meal in the first days of moving into a new house. This service is an extension of the current Starter Packs service operated by Fresh Start.

·         The charity will also deliver cookery classes to help people learn to cook meals on a small budget.

·         An allotment has also been created in the garden, which will provide food for the cookery classes.

Fresh Start’s new Development Worker, Angus Maclean, who comes from a homelessness and care services background, will oversee the project at Harrison Gardens.

Keith Robertson added: “The transition between being homeless and moving into a new home can often bring challenges such as financial burdens so we want to give people the best possible start in their new lives by providing them with the essentials as well as offering them support with cooking, food budgeting and training opportunities. The support from our funders and other local community projects has been a key to enabling the Food Station to open its doors.”

Fresh Start hopes to help over 60 people a year learn new cooking skills. The charity also aims to give around 150 people a cooker so they can cook for themselves.

The charity has received funding from the National Lottery Grant, NHS Lothian, Zero Waste Scotland, Rotary Club of Edinburgh and Hibbert Family Foundation. They have received help from Lloyds Banking Group, Bield Housing Association, John Redpath Electrical Contractors, G A Helmore Electricians, and CitySprint.

Fresh Start will work closely with Bethany Christian Trust and City of Edinburgh Council to ensure cookers and food reach the people that need them most. The cookery classes will be delivered and developed in partnership with Edinburgh Cyrenians Good Food Project.

To donate visit Fresh Start’s Just Giving Page:

http://www.justgiving.com/Fresh-Start-Cookers-for-Christmas-2013

FRESH_START_COOKER_APPEAL

Let’s hear it for the girls!

Fresh Start honours volunteers’ community spirit

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAHundreds of Edinburgh’s homeless households have been helped settle into their new homes thanks to generosity of local schoolchildren – who were recently honoured for their community spirit.

St George’s Lower School for Girls received a Community Volunteer Award from Edinburgh’s West pilton-based homelessness resettlement charity Fresh Start for its support in helping previously homeless families make a house a home.

Children from the school have collected items to go in Fresh Start’s Starter Packs for the last few years, providing invaluable support for the charity, which survives on donations to be able to make up the packs.

Every year, Fresh Start makes up and distributes around 9,000 packs, which provide the basics for new households to survive.

Keith Robertson, Managing Director, said: “The support of St George’s Lower School has meant hundreds of new households in Edinburgh have been able to make a house a home. These packs provide basics like bedding to keep warm at night, curtains to close the world out, crockery to eat dinner on. Without the kind of community spirit show by St George’s Lower School, we would struggle to continue to be able to provide the support we do.”

Head of Lower School Marjorie Hall said: “It’s been an honour to help provide goods for the packs – all the school children who have taken part have learnt a lot. They make houses to provide the goods in, which helps them to make the connection between being homeless and getting a house. It’s an important life lesson for them – that homelessness can happen to anyone.”

The school’s award was one of a number of awards, given out at the charity’s annual Volunteer Awards on Friday (November 8).

Every year Fresh Start volunteers, staff and directors nominate volunteers to get an award – Starter Pack Volunteer, Hit Squad Volunteer, Church Representative Volunteer, Community Volunteer and Corporate Volunteer.

Other award winners were:

  • Evelyn Scott from Colinton, who received an award for being an outstanding Starter Pack volunteer.
  • Tony Shephard from Abbeyhill, who received an award for being an outstanding Hit Squad volunteer. These volunteers help to decorate homes of Fresh Start clients.
  • Jack Simpson from Craiglockhart, who received an award for his work as a Church Representative.
  • The award for Corporate Volunteers went to Lloyds Banking Group.

Keith Robertson added: “At Fresh Start we depend on the support of our volunteers and the donations that come in, which is why we take a moment each year to honour those who help us so much.”

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

Fresh Start gets down to business

Joyce Clark
Joyce Clark

Resettlement charity Fresh Start has welcomed it’s first ever Business Manager as the charity goes through a period of growth. Joyce Clark takes up the newly created role with the Pilton-based charity, which works to help people make a home for themselves.

Ms Clark comes from a business and marketing background, with her most recent role in the third sector at Sacro, the national community justice voluntary organisation.

The new Business Manager role was created to help the charity grow as demand for its services continues to rise. Fresh Start’s board of directors decided at the start of the recession to promote a programme of expansion which has helped them to meet some of that demand – but the charity is still unable to help all those who need it.

Fresh Start provides a range of services: a Starter Pack service to help people with the basics needed to set up a new home; a Hit Squad service to help people decorate their new home and provide social support; and a training and employability service for people who have been homeless through its social enterprise in PAT Testing.

Keith Robertson, Fresh Start’s Managing Director, said: “We are delighted to welcome Joyce to Fresh Start in this newly created role as we expand and grow. Fresh Start has already come far from its roots, based in one of the member’s garages, helping just a handful of people in Pilton. But we are growing faster than ever before and we’re delighted Joyce is starting to help steer the ship in the right direction.”

Business Manager Joyce Clark said: “Fresh Start is a place where real tangible results can be seen in helping people to turn their lives around, thanks to the right kinds of support. I’m delighted to work with such a committed organisation and team – and look forward to helping the charity continue to support people to have a fresh start in life and develop ways of meeting the growing demand.”

FreshStartlogo

Dunedin Canmore supports Fresh Start hit squads

A Hit Squad volunteer gets to work
A Hit Squad volunteer gets to work

Edinburgh-based social landlord Dunedin Canmore Housing has renewed funding for a vital ‘Hit Squad’ service that helps people who were previously homeless to decorate their new home. The social housing landlord has linked up with Pilton-based resettlement charity Fresh Start to help fund the initiative.

Dunedin Canmore has donated £500 for each flat, which will allow the tenants to paint and carpet two rooms in their home with help from a Fresh Start Hit Squad – a team of volunteers who support the charity’s work.

Hit Squads not only provide help to decorate and give client’s long term skills – but they also help combat vulnerability and isolation through positive social contact.

Graeme Russell, Housing Services Director, Dunedin Canmore Housing said: “We’ve been in partnership with Fresh Start for the past 18 months on this project and it has proven to be a great success. Last year, every tenant involved said they felt more settled in their flat after having a visit from the Hit Squad. We’re therefore delighted to support the project once again this year.”

Keith Robertson, Managing Director, Fresh Start, said: “The support from Dunedin Canmore has been invaluable in helping people make a home for themselves. When you have been homeless moving into a home can be daunting, particularly as very often you’ll be moving into a shell. There is a lot of new responsibility. Our  Hit Squads help people to really feel they are making the house their own. And having support from others to settle in is very important too.”

Denise Cranston, 24, who is training to be a football coach, received support from the Hit Squad in March this year when she moved in to her new flat in Edinburgh after living in a homeless hostel.

Denise said: “It was quite daunting moving in to my new flat and looking at all the things I needed to do it. The Hit Squad helped me to paint my flat and they also gave me a cooker. This made the flat feel more like a home and they helped me to feel more settled. I’m really happy in the flat – I absolutely love it.”

HOME SWEET HOME A Fresh Start volunteer applies the finishing touches
HOME SWEET HOME A Fresh Start volunteer applies the finishing touches

Walk the Walk with Fresh Start

FreshStartHomelessness resettlement charity Fresh Start is urging fundraisers to walk ‘The Walk’ when its sixth annual sponsored walk takes place on 31 May – and walkers are being urged to sign up today! Last year a record 62 people walked the eight mile route together and the charity is hoping to beat that this time.

Fresh Start Director Keith Robertson, said: “Providing a roof over a family or an individual’s head is the first step in ending homelessness but making sure they keep it is the next challenge. That’s where Fresh Start comes in. We help people get the fresh start they deserve in life – and all money raised from the sponsored walk will go towards our work helping people who have been homeless resettle into the community.”

George Banks, from Ebenezer United Free Church in Edinburgh, who volunteers at Fresh Start, helping prepare the charity’s Starter Packs, said: “Last year was my first year on the walk which I enjoyed so much I am doing it again this year. Some friends of Fresh Start have been walking The Walk for a number of years and I’m delighted to take part again. The Walk takes you through some fascinating bits of Edinburgh and when you get tired there are plenty of places to have a wee seat – all in the knowledge that there is a huge welcome at the finish line and that you are doing it for a great cause.”

The 2013 walk follows its traditional eight-mile route along the Water of Leith to Colinton Dell, where we go on to the Union Canal towpath and head back into town towards the finishing line at Lochrin Basin, Fountainbridge.

The walk sets out from Dean Parish Church at 10.00am, with lunch and refreshments being served on the Re-union Canal boat.

Everyone is welcome to join in the fun. There’s no fee to take part however each walker is asked to raise a minimum of £25. For those wishing to raise money, a new Just Giving site has been set up at

http://www.justgiving.com/freshstartedinburgh

To register your interest, telephone Fresh Start offices on 0131 476 7741

FreshStartLogo

Rotary Club tees off support for new Fresh Start service

8536627021_009560647d_c

Previously homeless households in Edinburgh will be able to access a new food pack service later this year thanks to the generosity of the Rotary Club of Edinburgh. A donation of £28,840 will enable Edinburgh’s re-homelessness charity Fresh Start to produce the packs for the next three years, helping an estimated 2,500 households as they move into a new tenancy after a period of homelessness.

The money was raised at a special Golf Day at Muirfield, organised as part of the Rotarian’s centenary year celebrations.

The contents of the food packs are still to be finalised, but will contain store cupboard essentials to make sure people can make a basic meal when they first move into their new home.

The new packs will be given out to homeless households referred to the Fresh Start project and will be part of its wider Starter Pack service, which already sees it providing recently resettled families and individuals with much needed items, like bedding, small electrical items and kitchen items.

Edinburgh’s Lord Provost, Rt Hon Cllr Donald Wilson, called in at Fresh Start’s Pilton offices recently to inspect the packs and hear more about the new service. He also presented Fresh Start’s Managing Director Keith Robertson with the money raised from the Golf Day, enabling the charity to start work on getting the new service up and running.

The Lord Provost said: “Rotary International is admired the world over for its selfless support of individuals, families and communities and the Rotary Club of Edinburgh has been at the forefront of this for the past 100 years. Fresh Start is the latest in a very long line of wonderful and worthwhile causes they have chosen to help and my congratulations go to those who have put in so much time and effort towards raising this fantastic sum of money. I have no doubt that it will be put to good use, allowing the charity to continue their valuable work in helping people who have been homeless to get established in their new home.”

President of the Rotary Club of Edinburgh Bob Hislop added: “The amount raised is a significant sum in these challenging economic times and is not only a considerable achievement but a worthy legacy for the Rotary Club of Edinburgh’s Centenary Year. Edinburgh is a beautiful city but behind it hides poverty and it was for this reason we decided to choose Fresh Start as our Centenary Charity. We are delighted the Golf Day was such a success and that we are able to tee off a service that will help many families put a hot meal on the table.”

Fresh Start exists to help people make a home for themselves. Managing Director Keith Robertson said: “We are delighted to be chosen as the Rotary Club of Edinburgh’s Centenary charity and even more so that the money has allowed us to put in place plans for a new service. Very often people move into not a new home but an empty shell. We already provide a range of Starter Packs to help people have essential goods like bedding and crockery when they first move into a new house. Our new Food Pack service will help them to have a hot meal too – for some it might be the only thing they have to eat.”

The new service will operate from new premises and will be part of a larger food venture – details of which will be revealed soon.

 

Top chef ensures home cooking’s on the Fresh Start menu

Top Scottish chef Tom Kitchin has added his support to Fresh Start’s Cookers for Christmas appeal. The Michelin-starred chef launched Fresh Start’s appeal to buy recently homeless people a cooker for their new home and promised a £1 donation from every bill paid at his award-winning The Kitchin restaurant for a month. 

The Cookers for Christmas appeal allows Fresh Start to buy cookers to pass on to Edinburgh families and individuals who were previously homeless but who have recently been found a home. It gives the new householders the opportunity to make a fresh start by offering them one of the most important tools to help them.

Tom Kitchin made a trip to the Fresh Start warehouse in Ferry Road Drive to lend a hand and said: “This campaign is one close to my heart. Scotland boasts some of the best local produce available and eating well can be incredibly affordable. Giving people the tools to allow them to support themselves and their families is vital. A kitchen should be at the heart of a home and what better way to help families who have been homeless than giving them the means to cook in a secure and safe environment.”

Fresh Start Managing Director Keith Robertson said: “The people who receive the appliances have just been allocated a property and are often starting out with nothing – they don’t have the means to buy such an expensive item. Clearly, the most economical way to eat well is to cook at home, so by providing a cooker we are supporting new householders to take an important first step by helping them financially and physically.”

To find out more or donate to Fresh Start’s Cookers for Christmas appeal, visit the Fresh Start appeal page

Fresh Start’s Cookers for Christmas appeal is also going ‘social’ this year through the charity’s social media sites so if you’re on Facebook or Twitter, please share or retweet the appeal. For Twitter, the hashtag is #cookerforchristmas

 

 

Fresh start for Fresh Start!

Edinburgh’s Lord Provost Councillor George Grubb received a warm welcome to Fresh Start last week as the local charity held a double celebration.  The Lord Provost officially opened Fresh Start’s newly refurbished warehouse in Ferry Road Drive on Friday and the project also received the coveted Investing in Volunteers Award from Volunteer Development Scotland chief executive George Thomson.

George Thomson presents award to Fresh Start volunteer Caroline Stewart

The event was also a great opportunity to say thanks to the project’s 200 volunteers, many of whom attended the celebration.  Fresh Start director Keith Robertson (pictured below) said: ““Providing a roof over a family or an individual’s head is the first step in ending homelessness but making sure they keep it is the next challenge. Our services are volunteer driven and sometimes just the human touch of a volunteer can help combat the isolation felt by those who have been homeless. As well as our Starter Packs and Hit Squads, we also help provide employment opportunities. For some people, without these things, homelessness can become a recurring problem. Our volunteers make it possible for us to continue to help the numbers of people we do.”

Fresh Start director Keith Robertson

More in next month’s NEN