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News & Stories

From the Trust offices, and from the streets we walk.

We publish a short news note roughly every fortnight. Stories about beneficiaries appear only with their written permission, and we change names except where the person specifically asked us not to.

The the Practical Recovery Aid programme interior on its third birthday — bunting, a chalk sign, and a long table of cake and tea.
Featured · 21 September 2025

The the Practical Recovery Aid programme turns three — and a quiet rule we have learned.

Three birthdays in, our food club has a small number of parish households. a trustee, our Practical Recovery Aid programme Manager, reflects on what the first three years have taught us — and on the one rule that has changed how we set out a shelf.

"It is this: dignity is not something you add to a charity shelf at the end. It is the first decision you make about how a shelf is laid out. You put the tinned soup next to the fresh bread. You put the women's sanitary products at adult eye-level. You leave space around the till for a conversation. You never advertise that something is free."

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A view of a heating engineer's van outside a Tenbury terrace at dusk in November.Heating & Warmth Aid
12 Sept 2025 · 4 min read

Heating & Warmth Aid 2024–25: what we did, and where we will not stop

Last winter the Trust paid a handful of small heating grants — a rise of fifty-eight per cent on the previous year. Our trustees have agreed an early Winter Appeal for 2025–26 with a £3,000 target by mid-November.

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A young apprentice in overalls holding new boots in front of a workshop.the Mobility & Equipment fund
02 Sept 2025 · Story

"It paid for the boots. The boots got me through the door."

a parishioner, of Tenbury, on the £218 bursary that bought a pair of safety boots and a first month's bus pass — and how the door he walked through changed the year that followed.

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The chair of trustees Rev Julia Curtis signing the autumn quarterly letter on Trust headed paper.Quarterly letter
28 August 2025 · From the chair

Autumn 2025 quarterly letter — from Rev Julia Curtis

A short autumn letter on what we spent in Q2, who came through our doors, and what we are watching as the weather changes. The trustees signed off the Winter Hardship Appeal at the August meeting.

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An apple press in the Trust allotment with two pairs of hands turning the handle, autumn light.Garden
19 August 2025 · 3 min read

Apple Day 2025 — Sunday 19 October, all morning, all welcome.

Our 14th annual Apple Day brings the cider press, the seed swap, the a neighbouring hamlet beekeepers, and a kitchen-table reading by the parish poet Rev Julia Curtis. Free; donations to the Practical Recovery Aid programme.

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An older volunteer at the Practical Recovery Aid programme serving a member a paper cone of sliced cucumber.the Practical Recovery Aid programme
06 August 2025 · Programme note

the Practical Recovery Aid programme will close for one week — 25 to 31 August

We close the Practical Recovery Aid programme for one week each August. Our volunteers get a rest, our shelves get deep-cleaned, and our growers catch up on their picking. The the Practical Recovery Aid programme reopens with a 'Welcome Back' breakfast on Saturday 6 September.

Programme note
Quiet Visits counsellor a trustee at her desk with a stack of books.Quiet Visits
22 July 2025 · 5 min read

Three years of the Quiet Visits programme — a trustee writes.

Our counsellor on what changes when a drop-in room turns three: who finds it, who keeps coming back, and what she has learned from the seven hundred conversations she will now never repeat.

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The Trust caseworker the trustees holding her caseworker's notebook and a thermos in a sunlit kitchen doorway.Casework
08 July 2025 · Story

"They knocked on the door before we'd asked for help."

the trustees's quiet Tuesday morning in the streets behind the parish ford — a paid bill, a half-cup of tea, and a Friday call-back already in the diary before she had got back to the office.

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A bound copy of the Trust's 2023–24 trustees' report on a wooden desk.Annual report
24 June 2025 · Report

Our 2023–24 annual report is now online (one page; full version too).

We publish two versions of every annual report: a one-page plain-English summary for donors and beneficiaries, and a full Statement of Recommended Practice version for the Charity Commission.

Open the reports page
the trustees in her conservatory with a phone and a knitted blanket.Volunteers
11 June 2025 · Story

16 years on the phone — the trustees's quiet Tuesday round.

The volunteer who co-founded the Friendly Check-ins programme in 2009 writes about her 14 callers — what she has heard, what she has learned, and the one question she has stopped asking.

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