HFT receives £200,000 donation from Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund
Howard Lake | 6 November 2006 | Newswire
National charity for people with learning disabilities, HFT, has received a £200,000 donation from the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund (RAFBF).
The charity provides services for over 1,000 people in supported living, registered care homes, advocacy, supported employment and day services throughout the country. Over one hundred of its service users are related to members of the RAF and the RAFBF has provided support to HFT over the past twenty years.
The £200,000 donation will go towards HFT’s services in the UK where RAF family members live and to the charity’s Later Life†Appeal to refurbish and adapt existing facilities at its Focester Manor site in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire.
We are extremely grateful to the RAFBF for its continuous support over the past twenty years†said Kerensa McKeever, HFT, Trust manager.
This recent donation is a tremendous contribution towards our current work for people with learning disabilities nationwide and to the Frocester Later Life†Appeal.â€
The £800,000 Later Life†appeal was launched by HRH The Princess Royal, Patron of HFT, in June this year to fund refurbishment work at the Trust’s Frocester Manor site in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire.
We have a high regard for the outstanding support and services that HFT provides for all of its service users and in particular for the members of Royal Air Force Familiesâ€, commented Air Commodore Mike Barter, Director Welfare at the RAFBF.
We visited the Frocester site and were impressed by the work being undertaken there. The RAFBF is pleased to support HFT in recognition of both the ongoing running costs of the RAF Family clients and the crucial development at its first home Frocester.â€
HFT established its first residential home on the Frocester site in 1962. As HFT´s first home it is unusual in that 67% of the people who live there have been in residence for more than 30 years. HFT is making special adaptations to the existing accommodation to meet the needs of these thirty two people with learning disabilities who have expressed a strong wish to remain living there as they become older and inevitably frailer.
The Manor House, which is the main house in the service, has been refurbished together with its annexe where a ten bedded ground floor Mobility and High Support Needs unit has been established. The existing bungalow in the grounds and the Day Services buildings are also being refurbished with outside pathways being upgraded and ramps installed for wheelchair access.
ENDS
Issue Date: 6 November 2006
For further information please contact:
Irena Babic, Tel/Fax: 01275 343547
email:
ir***@bl********.uk
or
or
Suzi Walton, HFT, Tel: 0117 930 2655, Fax: 0117 922 5938
email:
su*********@hf*.uk
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
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