Sainsbury's Sittingbourne

Meadowfield School is located in Sittingbourne, Kent and serves pupils with Profound, Severe and Complex Needs (PSCN) including Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Severe Communication Difficulties and Physical Disabilities. We are the only Special School in the Swale area and currently have 305 pupils ranging in age from 3 to 19. This number is increasing each year with a high demand for school places. At Meadowfield School we continually seek to improve and recent new initiatives have included: Forest School, sensory circuits, therapeutic singing, gong therapy, increased work experience opportunities, yoga for special needs, a range of pupil well-being programmes and greatly improved feedback opportunities for pupils. At Meadowfield School we want to celebrate all the wonderful things our students can succeed in; to focus on the ability not disability. We want to raise the profile of our school within the local community and celebrate all of our achievements. We would love YOU to be part of our journey too. If you feel you can help us either by donating funds or to support us raise our profile in the community, we would love to hear from you.

We're a large primary school of 620 pupils and pride ourselves in our work with our community; we're striving to make the lives of families that we work with better. Unfortunately, we've a lot of families in need, nearly a quarter of our school population fall into the pupil premium category and we're looking for partners to enable our work to continue/grow. We are in one of the most deprived areas of Kent, there are fewer opportunities available to our children than those living elsewhere. We don't have a cinema, bowling alley or ice rink. There are few restaurants or other forms of local entertainment. There are no sports centres with running tracks, cycle parks or general amenities. There are limited opportunities for children to be around animals. We have a lack of infrastructure with regards to travel with only one main road linking the two ends of the island; consequently, some of our families have not ventured off of the island or to its different areas. There are many socio-economic barriers for our families and whilst we strive to support them through local food banks, Social Services and family charities, further help is very much needed. Our PTA subsidise school trips, offset educational activities and resell donated uniform for parents to purchase items at a much reduced price at the same time as raising funds. The PTA struggle to raise funds from those who are already struggling financially. Recently we have been hearing from families that they can only have items in food parcels that can be eaten cold as they cannot afford the gas and electricity to cook. They are even having to limit their children’s use of toilet paper in order to try to save a few pence, some of our parents have shared that they are not eating so that their children can. Therefore, we would be very grateful for any support that can be offered, whether this was food or non-food items; toiletries, cleaning products, shoes and clothes, school uniform, cooking equipment, gardening tools or materials for experimenting with, toys for use in school or at home. We would also be grateful for any financial donations that could be used in a variety of way for those families in dire situations. Our long term plan is to try and set up a community hub and cafe within our grounds that will enable parents to meet and share some of their experiences, come together to help one another and be supportive. It is our hope that this will provide career opportunities such as parents learning to manage the café or completing food hygiene courses so that they can transfer these skills to other places of work. We want to be able to offer opportunities for people to further their understanding of healthy lifestyles and have been talking about trying to offer fitness classes; we are willing to provide the space for this but we would need a partnership to help with supplying the expertise or delivering the classes.

Swale Community Care Project supports the local community of Swale in Kent; working with the local authority and local organisations to support the areas & services currently missed by existing organisations or processes. This includes the most vulnerable and isolated in the community. We are a registered Charity (No. 1203458) with a Charity Bank account in the organisations name. Our team has over 7 years of local charitable experience in supporting local organisations & working within the community. We have built up a good relationship with local organisations & businesses. We believe that by working with others and focusing on gaps in current support that as a collective we can improve wellbeing within the Swale area. Our Charitable Purposes: (1) Relief of Poverty: The relief of poverty or financial hardship in Kent by providing or assisting in the provision of welfare, education, training, healthcare projects and all the necessary support designed to enable individuals to generate a sustainable income and be self-sufficient. (2) Elderly People: To relieve financial hardship, sickness and poor health amongst elderly people. (3) Relief of Financial Hardship: The relief of financial hardship among people living or working in Swale by providing such persons with goods or services which they could not otherwise afford through lack of means. Our Aims with your support: -    The provision of low cost meals (via minimum value donation) and free food parcels via the organisations proposed community cafe & food bank. This includes general domestic items, health & sanitary items. Ambient foods will be utilised to support the food parcels, meals and soup kitchen. -    Free Children’s meals via our community café -    Free weekly Evening soup kitchen - Free Community Fridge providing free chilled food to the community. An item limit has been applied to ensure a balanced distribution. -    Through the community cafe and food parcel services we are able to build trust and observe changes in personal wellbeing, especially for those that have limited support networks. This enables an additional opportunity for detection, discussion and action through doctors, dentists, opticians or other specialists. - Our services provide support against loneliness and anxiety. -    As an organisation we promote the use of local businesses for our needs, supporting the local economy. Our distribution is assessment based to ensure that those benefitting from our services are aligned with our charitable purposes. These are reviewed every six months to ensure that we have the most current information and can support clients at a root cause level; working with 3rd party organisations in the areas of need. Our current live projects include home delivered food parcels and Heather House Community Cafe.