The Greenaway Foundation

Happy New Year to you all.

Firstly, we would like to thank everyone who engaged with us ad helped over the previous two months with all of our efforts.  Without your participation and help, we would have never been able to achieve as much as we did.  December was a busy month for the Greenaway Foundation, so we thought we would write to you all to let you know how things went and what we have planned for 2020.

As this newsletter is going out to people who nominated families, made donations and helped with some of our events, it will cover quite a few topics.  But we hope you will find it of interest and should you wish to be involved with some of the future events please let us know.

Best wishes

Darren Greenaway

Chairman & Trustee

Christmas Eve 2019

Each year we have been getting busier since our launch in 2011 of the Christmas Dinner appeal.  This Christmas was our busiest to date, up by almost 40%.  This year also saw the Wishing Tree gain momentum and over 700 wishes were granted, for the first time we saw this appeal take  up more man hours than the Christmas dinners.

Out of the fifty schools we approached this year, forty eight engaged with us.

Pop Up Proms

The average cost to a family who has a child attending a school prom is now nearly £1000 (according to the BBC), which is beyond many families who are financially challenged.  This means that many students will simply not attend their prom as to avoid putting pressure on their families.

 

This year the Greenaway Foundation are going to pilot a new scheme of Prom Pop Ups.  The plan is that, where there is a school which is having a prom, we will organise a space near it, manned with volunteer hairdressers, beauticians and manicurists.  Like always the schools can then nominate students who can then come along and get made up ready for the Prom free of charge.  We also plan to do appeals for people with nice or unusual cars to volunteer to be a Chauffeur to the event.

 

We also plan (but cannot promise) to convince local licence taxi firms to donate lifts to pick the students up at the end of the night and take them home.

 

If your school has a prom this year and you think this would be something you would engage with, please email darren@greenawayresidential.com

The Difference You All Made

Here are just some of the responses we received from recipients of the deliveries and the delivery drivers.  Thank you to everyone who made a difference this year.

Click here to read The Difference You All Made.

Help For Schools

Over the years The Greenaway Foundation has helped many financially challenged students via schools, with ad hoc help.  Examples of the help given are, buying items of school uniforms, PE kits, food and travel.  In one extreme case during 2019 we raised donations and part funded a students week long residential school trip.  But this was an exception due to the circumstances.

 

Our aim is to help teachers to help the students by solving problems that can affect their attendance and anxiety.  As our efforts are continuously evolving we try and look at everything on a case by case scenario.  However we would not make a donation for example of £1000 to send a child on an anger management trip.

 

If you you have a student that could use a little genuine help please do not hesitate to contact Darren Greenaway.  Up until now all solutions for funding have been financed by Darren Greenaway directly but with the formation of a formal charity, any solutions will be from The Greenaway Foundation.

Newsreader Nicolas Owen Helps

We were pleased to see News At Ten presenter and royal correspondent turn up to give a hand on Christmas Eve. 

Click here to read Newsreader Nicolas Owen Helps.

Helping The Homeless, 'Plane' And Simple.

After the collapse of Thomas Cook, Greenaway Residential & The Greenaway Foundation turn a negative into a positive.

Click here to read Helping The Homeless, 'Plane' And Simple..

Crawley Open House

As part of our Christmas efforts, all excess food items are delivered to our good friends at the Crawley Open House, to help with the amazing work that they do to feed the homeless.  This year we tried to help more in advance by guaranteeing a delivery of all the vegetables they would need prior to Christmas Eve as well as the inevitable excess.

 

The delivery was made by Simon Brown, branch manager of Greenaway Residential Crawley and Steve Munday breakfast DJ at Susy Radio. 

The Fiver Survivor

To help raise awareness for families on Britain's 'breadline', for the month of January Darren will be surviving on £5 per day.  This must cover his food, drink and entertainment for the whole month. 

Should you wish to sponsor his efforts please message us, as always a very single penny goes towards helping financially challenged families.  We wish him luck over the coming month.