How Supporting Local Charities Helps Local Areas

Small Communities Working Together For The Greater Good

Charity, the saying goes, begins at home. In other words, before thinking about others, we should put our own house in order, deal with our needs first and those of people close to us, before helping others.

From an early age, my parents instilled in me the importance of giving to help others less fortunate. I come from a maritime city, Kingston-upon-Hull, once the largest fishing port in the UK, and where many children were orphaned by World Wars and the sea.

It is estimated that more than 6,000 Hull fishermen perished at sea between 1835 and 1980.

The Sailors’ Orphan Homes is a charity that was inaugurated in 1837 to house, clothe and educate fatherless children of sailors. It was later extended to look after children who could not be cared for at home, from whatever background, and so a series of homes (orphanages) was built in and around the city of Hull.

Over the years these homes held ‘open days’ or fetes, to raise money, and my family and I would visit these events to support the charity.

It is believed 91% of all charities have no paid staff and are run entirely by volunteers. One such charity exists in the town where I now live, the coastal resort of Hornsea, with a population of around 10,000.

In 1994, thanks to the strong support of the local community, Hornsea Inshore Rescue, a local independent charity was established. It exists solely by donations from members of the public.

Our town believed a rescue service was needed in a coastal community that attracts tens of thousands of visitors throughout the year, and which still retains a small fishing fraternity who put to sea in their cobles every day.

The Hornsea Inshore Rescue is not funded by the larger RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution), itself a national charity, which has stations north and south of us, at Bridlington and Spurn Point, fourteen and twenty-eight miles distant respectively.

Since their inception twenty-eight years ago, the Inshore Rescue has proved its worth having been involved in the saving of lives, not just at sea, but when holiday-makers, and sometimes their dogs, have got into difficulty by falling down the cliffs or getting cut off by the incoming tide.

All members are highly trained volunteers who deliver educational talks and presentations to local businesses and schools, and approved courses on being safe at sea.

We in the town support this charity by holding various events to raise money. They vary from sponsored walks, swims in the sea on New Year’s Day, to having collection boxes in all the town’s pubs, shops, cafes, and bars.

Over 4000 people attended this New Year’s Day swim event on the beach, where nearly 300 swimmers braved the icy North Sea, and in the process raised over £2,000 on the day.

In the summer the Inshore Lifeboat crew will man a marquee at the annual Hornsea Carnival, held in a local park. Sea shanties will be sung and the crew will pray for fine weather, no call-outs this particular weekend, and hope the thousands of day-trippers who attend the event will be generous with their donations.

Whilst it is important to continue to support global charities like Oxfam, the Red Cross, and the UK’s Children In Need and Barnardo’s Children’s charities, it is important to help and assist more local charities, such as the Hornsea Inshore Rescue to survive and thrive.

You never know, one day you, or someone you know, might just need their help.

As the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine deepens, local businesses in my town have been organising appeals to help the aid efforts. Cafes, pubs, and shops have collection boxes situated at check-outs and on the bars, near the tills, in the case of pubs and cafes.

Local charity shops have been taking in donations of dry foods, toiletries, and blankets, and a driver has been organised to transport these supplies to a designated site on the Polish-Ukraine border, where large numbers of refugees have gathered.

It’s not just my town, but towns, villages, and cities all over the United Kingdom are organising similar responses, in an effort to supply humanitarian aid to the displaced people of the Ukraine.

So perhaps charity that once began at home is now extended, as it always will be, to others who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in such dire circumstances.

With thanks to Ravyne Hawke for providing the March Prompt, the link of which is shown below.

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