With 2023 now upon us and Crisis at Christmas 2022 complete, we look back at the amazing efforts of our corporate partners over the festive season, without whom running our vital services wouldn’t be possible.
‘I Stand with Crisis’ Financial Times
We are delighted that 15 companies joined our campaign with the Financial Times to ‘Stand with Crisis’ this Christmas, raising an incredible £130,000.
For over 15 years, the Financial Times and Crisis have joined forces at Christmas. In 2022, Crisis asked corporate supporters old and new to ‘Stand with’ people facing homelessness by supporting Crisis’ services at Christmas and year-round. Companies who joined the campaign had their logo featured in Crisis’ double page advert in the Financial Times that ran for two weeks during December 2022.
This Christmas, as the cost-of-living crisis dominated the headlines, Crisis CEO Matt Downie and Chris Giles, Economic Editor at the FT, hosted a special webinar for our supporters, covering the impact of the cost of living crisis on people currently experiencing or facing homelessness in Britain.
Thank you to the companies who supported our campaign (in alphabetical order): Aimar Foundation, Ashmore Foundation, Bensons for Beds, Berkeley Foundation, Bespoke IT Solutions, BDO Services Ltd, Foster and Partners, GSK, NHBC, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, PwC Foundation, QBE, Specsavers, Watches of Switzerland Group Foundation, Vertex Foundation and XPS Pensions Group. We are excited to share the impact that this support has made to our Crisis at Christmas services.
Volunteering
Every Christmas our day centres and hotels provide vital services to people at one of the hardest times of the year. During the festive season and throughout the year, we help people directly out of homelessness, and campaign for the social changes needed to solve it altogether.
Over Christmas 2022, Crisis opened temporary centres to provide these vital services, and a space to take up the life-changing opportunities on offer at our Skylight centre in the New Year ahead. In 2020, we had to radically review and redesign our Christmas offer to respond to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. For the past two years, we have spent two weeks accommodating guests in hotel rooms around London. We worked with the GLA and DLUCH to run an extension on the two-week offer, which saw almost all our guests leave us in a better housing situation than when they first arrived. This year we’re proud to report that Crisis at Christmas delivered:
· 450 people accommodated in hotels during the coldest time of the year, each with a new set of clothes covered by the Ford Motor Company Fund.
· 1,759 wellbeing packs provided, including information, advice and toiletries
· 3,483 offers of healthcare, accommodation, food and company to people in need
“There honestly aren’t enough words to describe my experience with Crisis and the Guests that attended, they were so lovely to the extent I opted to cancel my shifts at Crisis Hyde Park and attend Crisis Hackney just to see them again. It was the most humbling and fulfilling experience and an absolute honour to serve a community of people who are often overlooked by society.
Within my service, I have recognised my lack of contribution to battling homelessness however that has reignited the desire to do more work with Crisis and hopefully other organisations throughout the year.” Richard, the Berkeley Group
None of this would have been possible without our 3,316 volunteers, including teams of dedicated corporate partners rallying together to provide helping hands, human connection and compassion across our sites.
Rachel Flaxman of the Wimbledon Foundation (Crisis partners since 2020) said she was in “awe” of the work and generosity people showed at one of Crisis’ stations.
“The Crisis station offers everything from hot showers and a Christmas lunch to karaoke and cinema screenings. I was stationed on clothing which was one of a number of services including haircuts, manicures and eye tests all offered by professionals who had volunteered time.
A definite highlight was finding a coat in the right size for a gentleman who didn’t have one, and I enjoyed chatting with people listening to stories as we found them what they needed.”
Gift in Kind
As well as volunteering and monetary donations, our partners came together across multiple offices and industries to gather much needed supplies for our day centres and hotels. From biscuits to boardgames, shampoo to snacks our partners creatively hosted collection days as part of their festive celebrations to be distributed and enjoyed by our members throughout December and January.
Retail brand and long-time supporter hush donated over 5,000 clothing items to our Christmas guests and Shops from Crisis across London, including items such as tracksuits, boots, gloves and jumpers.
John Frieda volunteers not only donated their time giving free haircuts to guests at our centres, but also generously donated haircare items for people experiencing homelessness.
Papa Johns gave over £2,000 of pizza vouchers to feed hungry Crisis at Christmas volunteers and also members and coaches at Edinburgh Skylight.
Crisis at Christmas guests also received hundreds of refurbished Nokia phones, kindly donated by HMD Global, through the charity unconnected.org, giving our Christmas guests the gift of staying connected this Christmas.
Could your organisation be our next Christmas appeal heroes? To find out more about partnering with Crisis and how you can support us for Christmas 2023 and beyond, email corporatepartnerships@crisis.org.uk