Newington Housing Association are continuing to ‘Shelter, Support, Sparkle and Shine’
Newington Housing Association are continuing to ‘Shelter, Support, Sparkle and Shine’ through this period.
Within our sheltered housing schemes, 70 residents will be provided with a three course Christmas Lunch. Whilst this festive celebration is an annual occurrence celebrating friendships, creating new ones and combatting social isolation, it is always well attended and enjoyed. This Christmas tenants will instead be enjoying their meal on 18th December in the comfort of their homes. Christmas Lunch will be provided by a local catering company and this will be funded by the Association. On 18th December, staff will be going door-to-door to deliver the meals to all tenants to enjoy, along with a few surprises.
Newington continues to support the work of the North Belfast Advice Partnership’s Foodbank and Christmas Toys Appeal. While the Association has provided £5,000 of much needed funding, a number of Newington staff have been giving up their evenings and weekends to pack Christmas hampers in the SSE Arena and to deliver these to households within the local area. Newington’s ‘Shining Stars’ are volunteering after work finishes every evening Monday to Friday 6pm – 8.30pm and on a Saturday 11am – 4pm.
Newington are also working with a local youth group assisting with funding to roll out a project which will deliver Christmas Dinners & Christmas Hampers on Christmas Day to local residents who are likely to spend Christmas Day alone. The youth project also intends to distribute 30 cold weather packs (i.e. socks, hats, gloves etc.). to homeless/rough sleepers within Belfast city centre.
Our Camberwell Court scheme coordinator, Kathleen Hale is continuing to be a ‘Shining Star’ by providing daily support to tenants and encouraging them at this very challenging time. As gatherings cannot be held in the common room, Kathleen regularly goes door-to-door with tea and tasty treats. She has begun making referrals to ‘The Peoples Kitchen’, a charitable organisation who will cook and prepare hot meals each week for elderly residents and is often shopping herself for those who cannot get out at present. She is always there to provide a friendly ear and has involved tenants in decorating Camberwell Court to ensure there is plenty of Christmas cheer.
NHA Board recently agreed to financially support the following initiatives during December.
- A grant of £5,000 has been awarded to the North Belfast Advice Partnership to support the delivery of their ‘Foodbank Christmas Hampers & their ‘Sponsor a Child Appeal’. Also, several NHA staff members are now volunteering (i.e. during evening and weekends) at the foodbank located at the SSE Arena, Belfast. It is envisages that they will jointly provide approximately 90 voluntary hours to the Food Bank initiative during the run up to Christmas (as outlined above).
- A grant of £5,250 has been awarded to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to support the delivery of crisis intervention and their Christmas Appeal.
The funding was distributed to four local SVP conferences within North Belfast. - Awarded £1,600 grant to TAMHI to support refurbishment of new offices for a local mental health initiative.
- Awarded £1,000 grant to the Community Food Bank
- Awarded £1,000 grant to the Ligoniel Healthy Living Centre to help provide over 100 (3 course Christmas Dinners) to elderly residents throughout North Belfast.
- Awarded £500 grant to help support a Newington HA resident initiative. This resident has provided Christmas Cake/Small Gift Packs to pensioners throughout North Belfast for several years.
- Awarded £1,000 grant to Holy Family Conference (on top of £750 previously awarded within the £5,250 award)) to support their crisis intervention work within lower North Belfast.
- Awarded £500 grant to Connections Youth Project (as outlined above).
- Awarded £800 for NHA staff to deliver an initiative on Fri. 18/12/2020 (as outlined above).
Total Newington HA investment on initiatives for December 2020 = £16,650.00
