A very BIG thank you to all our funders and donors

We recently wrote about the impact of Covid-19 on our service delivery, as well as our plans for reopening over the coming months. If you have not already done so, please do check out our last blog post: Rise and Shine, Big Breakfast Plus is back for more information about our service closure, our upcoming priorities and our plans for reopening. It’s great to be back!

Whilst we acknowledge that our charity (like many others) has experienced some challenges and changes during the pandemic – including saying goodbye to The Haven and some of our trustees/team members – we also have so much to look forward to and celebrate. This includes the appointment of our new General Manager Jax and the incredible fundraising success we have had from many donors, supporters and funders in 2020 – 2021. We wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you for supporting our work and acknowledge the valued contributions from local businesses, organisations, individual donors and other organisations who have supported our work before and during our service closure.

Our Fundraising Success

Big Breakfast Plus is truly humbled to have received such wonderful financial support from local businesses, individuals and organisations. Like many charities, our team actively fundraises to cover core costs including facilities, food and staff salaries. Whilst we had lower costs due to our closure, we did have to fundraise for increased costs towards reopening and budget for a potential increase in demand for our service due to rising food poverty locally.

In total, we received almost £37,000 in grants and donations to support our work with homeless people between 2020 – 2021. Almost all of these funds were received during our service closure, for which we are very thankful.

Corporate & Organisation Donations

We received over £26,000 in donations from a total of 7 corporate businesses and local voluntary/community organisations in 2020 – 2021. This made up over 70% of our income during this time.

We are incredibly grateful to Honda, who made an initial donation of £750, followed by an amazing £12,000 donation from funds set aside for a staff Christmas meal which was unable to go ahead due to Covid-19 restrictions. Thanks to everyone at Honda for thinking of us!

We would also like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Thames Water who chose Big Breakfast Plus as one of six local charities to receive support. £1,000 was raised by the Equality Diversity & Inclusion group at Walnut Court, Swindon and another £1,000 was raised through the annual staff pantomime, with an additional £834 of match funding pledged by Thames Water.

We too are very grateful to Sainsbury’s ‘Bags of Help’ scheme who donated over £7,700 to Big Breakfast Plus in late 2020, from the sale of carrier bags. A big thank you also goes to Christmas Care in Swindon who regularly support our charity during the festive period and who very kindly donated £3,000 during the first national lockdown.

Finally, we would like to thank Nythe Community Centre and Swindon Lions Club for kindly donating £500 and £200, respectively. The funding raised from Swindon Lions Club meant we were able to purchase Greggs food vouchers for homeless guests during our service closure. We and our guests are thrilled that we were able to offer a take-away breakfast and a hot drink thanks to this generous donation.

Nationwide Building Society

Big Breakfast Plus has a strong relationship with Nationwide Building Society and we have had many generous offers of volunteers as well as funding from Nationwide. A very big thank you to the Nationwide Internal Audit team who have set up their own fundraiser for Big Breakfast Plus with the overall aim of raising £1,000.

So far, the team has reached over a third of their target through internal activities like a quiz and football sweepstakes. Thanks to everyone who has donated to the fundraiser so far!

Grant Funding

Big Breakfast Plus employs a small team of paid staff and we are always grateful for support towards salary costs. We were delighted to receive £5,000 in grant funding from Wiltshire Community Foundation in April 2020, this was the second tranche of a two-year grant towards staff salaries. We have been working with Wiltshire Community Foundation for a number of years and would like to extend a very big thank you from all of here us at Big Breakfast Plus for your ongoing support of our work.

Speaking of grant funding, we have also recently been successful in a bid to support with the safe reopening of our service following Covid-19. We hope to have news to share about that very soon, keep an eye on our blog our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages for more information. Also, if you are not already following us on social media, please do consider connecting with us for the latest news.

Individual Donations

During 2020-2021 Big Breakfast Plus received over £3,600 in one off or regular donations from 98 individual donors. As a charity we are so thankful for donations received from individuals, either as a direct bank transfer or through our LocalGiving donation page. Whilst we cannot name you here (for your privacy), we would like to say a very big thank you for your support which means the world to us.

If you would like to support our work, please do consider making a one-off donation by sponsoring a breakfast for just £5 or becoming a regular donor to Big Breakfast Plus. Your donations really do make a huge difference to our work with homeless people and will help us as we expand our service to support people experiencing food poverty in Swindon.

What’s more, if you make a donation on our LocalGiving page between 17th-23rd June 2021, this could raise a further £500 as part of the Small Charities Week challenge.

Fundraising & Events

We were also very fortunate to receive over £2,000 in donations and support from other fundraising activities and events. During 2020-2021 we received over £500 from Swindon Community Lottery. This is a fantastic way to support Big Breakfast Plus and be in with a chance to win up to £25,000 in a weekly prize draw. Thanks to everyone who supported us through the lottery by buying tickets on our dedicated Swindon Community Lottery page.

We also received £33 from Recyle4Charity, a printer cartridge recycling service which offers a donation to charity for recycled printer cartridges. If you have cartridges you would like to recycle to raise a donation, please visit Recycle4Charity and use the reference: ‘Big Breakfast Plus – C87659’ – we could get several pounds in donations per cartridge and it’s better for the environment too.

Whilst there were no opportunities to attend events during 2020-2021 due to social distancing and restrictions on gatherings, we were able to raise over £1,200 from attending events prior to the national lockdown in March 2020.

These events included the Armed Forces Day, Broadgreen Food Festival, Mechanics Institute Children’s Fete, Nationwide, Old Town Festival, Swindon & Wiltshire Pride, Rotary Club of Swindon Duck Race, Ladies Club event/talk and the VAS Community Fair.

Thank you to everyone who supported Big Breakfast Plus and our work at these events.

Schools

We too would like to extend our gratitude to the students and staff at Red Oaks Primary School in Swindon, who kindly donated £260 proceeds from their virtual Harvest Festival (the previous year they also donated 900 breakfast food items see photo!) Your continued support is very much appreciated, as is your kindness in thinking of homeless people as you celebrated your Harvest Festival together.

We were also delighted to receive £225 from Mountford Manor School as part of our ‘Buy a Breakfast’ appeal.

The proceeds from a cake and bake sale held by staff, were given to Big Breakfast Plus towards the cost of buying Greggs food vouchers for rough sleepers. Their donation was offered by way of thanks to The Haven and Swindon Night Shelter (SNS) for supporting families with food boxes in their hour of need and in recognition of our sharing our food donations with SNS – all working together to support our most vulnerable citizens.

Funders and Supporters since our 25th anniversary (June 2018)

Whilst we have acknowledged the organisations and individuals who have supported our work in 2020-2021, we’d also like to take this opportunity to thank all the businesses, organisations and individuals who have supported Big Breakfast Plus, over the years and since our 25th anniversary in 2018. For a full list of donors and funders, please see our recently updated Funders and Supporters list.

A Final Note from Us

Whether big or small, regular or one off, every single contribution our brilliant supporters, donors and funders have made to Big Breakfast Plus during this challenging period for our charity (and indeed many others) has made a big difference as we make plans for the future. 

From all of us here at Big Breakfast Plus, thank you for thinking of our homeless guests, even when times were tough, and money or budgets were tight. Because of your support we are confident that we can hit the ground running as soon as we are able to welcome our guests back to breakfast. We can’t wait!