Fundraisers hope a message from the heart will help them raise sufficient money to carry out urgent repairs to a charity’s drop-in centre in Bognor Regis.
The Valentine’s Day initiative is designed to try to boost coffers to replace the flooring at the Aldingbourne Trust’s Aldwick Road venue.
The fund-raising effort came to light when University of Chichester graduate Jamie Dyer visited the centre in order to learn about the centre’s plight.
Jamie, who runs SouthWaves Radio, sat down with Lisa Palmer who hopes various events will help them raise enough money to complete urgent repairs to the centre.
Lisa explained: “The conference room is used for training and that can be internal and external, so we have a lot of foot traffic and the floor is deteriorating so much so that it’s becoming a trip hazard.
“It’s a priority that it gets replaced but being a charity, we don’t quite have the funds or reserves so it’s really important we do our hardest to fundraise because if we don’t we may have to look at changing where we are and what activities we do as it’s becoming a health and safety issue.”
The flooring issue is a big problem for the centre and efforts to raise money to fix it have already begun. Late last year, a live art auction event was held and raised £600 that will go towards the refurbishment, but more needs to be done, says Lisa.
She added: “We are also working on some other fundraising ideas so for example an initiative which is about having hearts in the window and people can pay to put messages on there and that’ll obviously be for Valentine’s Day. Message from the heart is the name of that initiative.
“We’re also planning nearer to Easter to have some kind of Easter fair with people donating raffle prizes and we’ll have a cake sale as well so anything really to top up the much-needed funds for the flooring.”
The Aldingbourne Trust works hard to enable adults with learning disabilities to lead rewarding lives through education, training, professional care and a deep focus on building strong partnerships with local businesses and employers.
