1st Southgate Scout Group would like to say a massive well done to Eloise for achieving her volunteering badge! See below a letter from the charity of some of the amazing work she did:

Dear Scout Leaders

About us

We are the Labour Women’s Group, and we have been trying to help our community by collecting food on behalf of food banks in Crawley. Whilst not being a charity ourselves, we support three local charities. We support the Free Shop which is a Crawley charity based in Bewbush but serving struggling families across Crawley. We support Open House a charity that supports mainly the homeless in Crawley but also people in homes that are still  struggling with the cost of living crisis. We also support the Easter Team a Church based charity helping individuals and families that are struggling and also providing meals and social time particularly for the elderly.

What we do is set up a table in different parades around the town and the wonderful people of Crawley either search their cupboards or pop into the local shops and provide tins, packets and jars etc that we share out and donate to the three charities. While we are there we collect other things like bedding, clothes coats, and small gift like items that the different charities also make use of. We have permission through the County Council to collect food and goods, but do not have permission to collect money so as such, people wishing to give us money we explain that we will pop into the local shops and buy food to share across the charities. We are not licensed to give food out, so it all goes to the charities concerned. We do however signpost people who feel they need help, to the relevant charities.

About Eloise

A lovely young lady called Eloise, popped along to where we were working on Saturday, at Three Bridges Parade, accompanied by her Mum Helen, and asked if she could help. She was so positive about helping and helped with a whole range of activities. I am sure you will be pleased to know she used her knot tying skills to ensure our sign didn’t blow over, and she helped laying out the table. She quickly learnt what foods and donations were more suitable for the different charities and asked intelligent questions whilst interacting beautifully with the public. She stayed the whole 2 hours, right through to the end both helping us pack everything away for each charity and load the cars. She even took mum to Open House to hand in one of the sets of donations.

Eloise said she is working towards her volunteering badge and she showed all the enthusiasm and energy to support that aim. We feel she has made an excellent start on a really valuable badge, which we hope encourages young people to work for others in the community. We gave Eloise some ideas of other places she could volunteer.