Better Things, one of Manchester’s smallest charities which provides mental health support and practical assistance to people with learning disabilities/autism, is now seeing people struggle to afford its heavily-subsidised services. It is subsequently on the hunt for 25 local businesses to support a new sport-themed fundraising initiative so it can make its sporting activities free of charge for the rest of the year.
The charity, which has less than ten staff (working a variety of hours), provides a range of sporting and social activities in Wythenshawe so that people have a safe space to come to and relax and make friends. These include football, Zumba, and multi-sport sessions.
Better Things CEO Kate Maggs said: “The people we work with are often isolated and face discrimination, verbal and even physical abuse – often from complete strangers – so we use sport to give them a safe and welcoming place to come, enjoy themselves and make friends.
“We’ve seen people turn from being very introverted and shy to confident and chatty after attending just a couple of sports sessions. But we need to be able to pay for football pitches, sports halls and instructors. The sessions are already heavily subsidised, but with the cost of living crisis people are struggling to pay as little as two pounds to join in.
“We’re a very small charity with limited funds so we need to raise £2500 so that we can provide the sessions free for the rest of the year. We’re hoping to do this by holding a sport-themed fundraising day on the 3rd February and we’re looking for local businesses, schools and colleges to join in with it.”
The fundraising initiative will involve local businesses promoting the event internally and encouraging their staff to wear their favourite sports team shirt (e.g. football, rugby, cricket etc.) and to each make a suggested donation of £3-£5 to Better Things (using the website so the charity can claim gift aid).
To make it interesting, participating organisations are being encouraged to hold their internal own competition amongst those joining in to compete for the titles of:
- oldest kit
- most unusual kit
- club/team furthest away
Companies that have signed up so far include Trafford-based digital signage consultancy, Saturn Visual Solutions, and Hale-based digital marketing agency, First Internet.
Julaine Speight, Marketing Director at First Internet said: “As soon as we heard about the initiative, we were keen to get involved. Our staff think it’s a great idea that will be really fun.”
Paul Murphy, Operations Director at Saturn Visual Solutions said: “We’ve been supporting Better Things for a few years now and have seen first-hand what a difference a small amount of money can make to them. It’s a wonderful charity and it’d be a terrible shame if lots of people missed out on their only weekly social interaction because they couldn’t afford to pay for an already heavily-subsidised session. If you can help, please do.”
