Two Harrogate charities move in together on Hornbeam Park

Two local voluntary organisations have moved into Disability Action Yorkshire’s Hornbeam Park headquarters and learning centre

Resurrected Bites and Canaan Warehouse, which also includes Harrogate Clothes Bank, will occupy the space previously used as a second-hand furniture shop by Disability Action Yorkshire.

Resurrected Bites was established in 2018 to reduce food waste and food poverty. Canaan Warehouse redistributes donated household items and clothing for free to those in need in the Harrogate area and in eastern Europe.

The unit at Hornbeam Park gives the charities have more space and will reduce their overheads as well as provide employment opportunities for Disability Action Yorkshire’s disabled adults.

Disability Action Yorkshire’s chief executive Jackie Snape said:

“We are delighted that Resurrected Bites and Canaan Warehouse are now utilising our warehouse space, in a partnership that benefits them, us and our learners.

“One of our aims is to assist disabled people in leading independent lives wherever possible, and a key part of this is gaining employment.

“Our learners used to get valuable retail, warehouse and customer service training from our furniture enterprise, and this hands-on experience will continue under this new arrangement.”

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Dr Michelle Hayes, Resurrected Bites and Harrogate Clothes Bank founder, said moving to a unit together will mean the charities can work alongside each other to stop good quality items going to landfill and help those in need:

“When we realised that Resurrected Bites was intercepting so much food that we needed to find a warehouse, we wanted to think outside the box rather than just renting a commercial space.

“Resurrected Bites are always in need of volunteers for our cafes, groceries and warehouse and likewise the Harrogate Clothes Bank and Canaan Warehouse are both keen to invite the learners to volunteer with the sorting and distribution of clothes and furniture.”

Between March 2020 and July 2021, Resurrected Bites has helped feed more than 15,800 people with around a week’s worth of food. Each week, it diverts around three tonnes of food waste from landfill sites.

Image caption: Dr Michelle Hayes, second left, and Jackie Snape, second right, are pictured with a Resurrected Bites volunteer and two disabled learners

Stray bonfire raises record-breaking £6,500 for charity

The 50th Stray bonfire and fireworks on Saturday night raised a record-breaking £6,568.42 for charity, organisers have announced.

Harrogate RoundTable, a group of local men aged 18-45 who organise charity and community events, will donate the proceeds to Friends of Harrogate Hospital.

If anyone missed the chance to donate, a GoFundMe is still open.

John Carter of Harrogate RoundTable said:

“Harrogate RoundTable would like to thank everyone who came along to enjoy the bonfire and fireworks display on the Stray. It’s the 50th year that we’ve put on the event and it was a fantastic night!

“As always the event was free for everyone to attend, however, we’d like to thank the Harrogate public for their generous donations to raise funds for this year’s charity The Friends of Harrogate Hospital. We also want to thank all the volunteers for their hard work over the whole weekend.”

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Harrogate RoundTable is also asking attendees and the wider Harrogate public for their views on how to take the event forward in future years.

An online survey has been created which can be accessed here.

 

Harrogate’s ‘Toytropolis’ garden bringing smiles to children’s faces

Harrogate man Paul Ivison has created “Toytropolis” — a garden resplendent with 200 toys, including Scooby-Doo, Batman and Peppa Pig.

Mr Ivison has lived in his house on Mayfield Terrace for 15 years and each year decorates his garden with different themes. When the Stray Ferret visited in the summer, he had created a loud and proud mental health-themed garden, which raised £137 for Mind.

For winter, he’s been bargain hunting on Facebook marketplace to buy toys to make children and their parents smile.

He hopes to raise £500 for North Yorkshire Horizons, a county-wide drug and alcohol addiction service that he has previously worked for. Visitors can leave donations in a box by the gate.

Mr Ivison said:

“Things snowballed and I was buying up toys left right and centre. I got three Bat caves for a tenner.

“It’s my usual problem though — I don’t stop!”

He said the response from children and parents makes him feel good and helps with his own mental health.

“A couple of children saw Peppa Pig and were ecstatic.”

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He’s had a problem with thieves visiting the garden. One tried to pinch a toy elephant, but thankfully its feet were attached to the ground with super-strength glue.

Mr Ivision will soon be adding six Christmas trees to the garden and Toytropolis will stay until the second week of January.

He added:

“Someone asked me, what are you going to do to top this? But I’m sure I’ll think of something!”

You can visit Toytropolis on the corner of Mayfield Grove and Mayfield Terrace.

Charity Corner: Combating furniture poverty across the Harrogate district

Tucked away behind Leeds Road in Harrogate is a charity working to combat furniture poverty by giving those struggling for items the chance to make a house a home.

Essentials Needs, on Back Gladstone Street, takes donations of beds, sofas, furniture, bedding and electrical appliances and sells them to people in need.

Initially the charity was set up just to help people on low income or benefits but it has now opened it’s shop to the wider public too.

Set up over 25 years ago, manager Lee Wright said the need for its services has rocketed in recent years with more and more people coming in for help.

The charity is run by a team of nine staff and 23 volunteers who make sure people have the furniture they need at a price they can afford.

Sofas and beds are the most in demand items for the charity. Last year it sold almost 4,500 items, including 345 sofas and 311 beds and mattresses.

Furniture is checked to make sure it is in good condition.

The items range in price but are significantly lower than most outlets and people on means-tested benefits or low income are offered an extra 30% discount.

Mr Wright said:

“We are here to help people in crisis. Just because the people we help may be struggling financially it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have nice things. People shouldn’t be without a bed or a sofa, we’re here to help them in any way we can.

“We are very lucky with the donations we get, we are never without which is great. People are becoming more aware of reusing items so people are always calling us up to offer their furniture.”

The charity works by sending staff and volunteers out in vans to pick up donations, which are then checked or PAT tested and put into the showroom.

More of the items available to buy.

Last year the charity stopped 62 tonnes of usable furniture going to landfill. It also helped 783 households purchase low cost furniture in the Harrogate district.

Mr Wright added:

“There are a lot of people in Harrogate struggling, it’s no different to any other area. The £20 uplift that has just disappeared will have an impact. Even people working five days a week or a low wage need our help.

“We had people literally knocking at the door after lockdown because they’d moved in to a new place at the beginning but had nothing, so we had to open for a skeleton service.”

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As well as sofas and beds, the showroom has bedroom furniture, tables and chairs, curtains and home accessories. It is also part of the Reuse Network, meaning it receives bags of ex-display or returned bedding and pillows from Dunelm Mill.

The charity also works with other local charities, such as IDAS Women’s refuge in Harrogate, Harrogate Homeless Project and branches of The Royal British Legion

In future, the charity hopes to sell carpets and set up a community group to repair furniture.

Harry Kane’s World Cup shirt auction to fund community groceries

Harry Kane has donated his signed shirt from the England v Poland World Cup qualifier to Resurrected Bites for an auction to raise money for a community grocery project.

The Tottenham striker and England captain scored in the fixture which ended 1-1 on September 8.

Kane’s shirt was signed by all of the players and also comes with a letter of authenticity.

Resurrected Bites usually takes in surplus food but this special donation was thanks to the team’s relationship with Gareth Southgate’s assistant manager Steve Holland.

Michelle Hayes, the founder of Resurrected Bites, said:

“Steve is the nephew of my step-dad Tony. Tony is one of our volunteers and washes up at one of the Resurrected Bites cafés every week.

“When he told Steve about Resurrected Bites, Steve offered to help us with our fundraising. We were over the moon to receive Harry Kane’s shirt which has been signed by all of the England players.

“We think this shirt could really make an exceptional Christmas present for someone. That is in addition to raising much needed funds for our organisation.”

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The auction is being held on the Resurrected Bites Facebook page, where people are invited to share their bids by commenting below the post.

Bidding will end at 8pm on Sunday, November 7. The auction started off at £100 and has already reached £340.

Steve Holland with Gareth Southgate.

All of the money raised will go towards the community grocery project.

Resurrected Bites set up its first grocery at New Park Academy Community Hub but plans to open a second in Knaresborough in December.

At the community grocery people pay £5 a year to sign up as members. They are then entitled to pay £3, £5 or £9 depending on the size of their family, for items that would typically cost £30.

It stocks a wide range of tinned, fresh food and frozen food as well as toiletries, sanitary products and nappies in various sizes.

Harrogate ex-prison governor raises £5,000 for charity

A former prison governor from Harrogate has raised almost £5,000 for charity by giving speeches about her 35 years in the prison service.

Veronica Bird, a Harrogate resident of over 20 years, worked with some of the most notorious criminals in the country, including Moors Murderer Myra Hindley, and Charles Bronson, a man labelled ‘the most violent prisoner in the country’.

Proceeds from Ms Bird’s speaking engagements will be handed to nine local and national charities at an event on Tuesday. The event, which will be held in a garden on Cornwall Close, will be opened by Brackenfield school choir.

Ms Bird, who received an OBE for her work in the prison service, said:

“I came from a big family, a lot of poverty, and so I know what it is to be without food, without clothes.

“My school motto was ‘not for oneself, but for all’ and that is what I try to follow. Without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

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She has chosen local charities Saint Michael’s Hospice and Girlguiding’s Birk Crag Centre. Cheques will also go to Jacqui’s Million, Barnsley Hospice, St Leonard’s Hospice, and Mind, alongside the MS Society UK, Royal British Legion, and the NSPCC.

The event begins at noon, at 100 Cornwall Close, Harrogate, on Tuesday 2nd November.

‘It could happen to anyone’, says Harrogate woman who had stroke at 37

At just 37-years-old, a Harrogate woman suffered a stroke that left her needing emergency surgery and permanently altered her outlook on life.

Caroline Brady is sharing her story today, on World Stroke Day, in hope of raising awareness that a stroke can happen to anyone, no matter their age.

On January 17, 2020 she was working as a fitness instructor at Harrogate’s David Lloyd gym when she began slurring her speech.

Ms Brady finished teaching her abs class but over the next two hours continued to slur and felt dizzy.

Her colleagues grew concerned and called for an ambulance. The paramedics performed a stroke assessment, which she passed, so she was taken to Harrogate District Hospital for further investigation.

Four hours after the initial signs, Ms Brady lost control of her left side and had a stroke in hospital at 1.30pm.

By 4pm she was in theatre to remove a clot on her brain. She said she remembers “a feeling of urgency” around her but it wasn’t until she came round that she understood what had just happened.

Fresh outlook on life

Since then, Ms Brady has been focused on recovery. She said she was “extremely lucky” to have recovered to the extent that she’s back at work, walking and even running.

She has returned to David Lloyd working part-time as a receptionist, but said her outlook on life has changed.

“It’s been a hard journey back to work. I was very work conscious, always picking up extra hours and covering for people but going back after the stroke I knew I couldn’t do the same.

“So I had a word with myself and said ‘you aren’t weak to slow down’. When you have such a shock at a young age, with no underlying health issues, you can’t help but think differently.”

She no longer teaches gym classes and has been advised to stop weight training but says she is happy just to be walking and occasionally running again.

Ms Brady is enjoying the outdoors again.

Following her experiences, she is determined to raise awareness of strokes and who they can affect.

She added:

“For anyone that knows me it was a huge shock, you never expect to hear ‘I’ve had a stroke’ from a young person. But it can happen to anyone.

“There’s also a misconception that if you have one at a young age you will recover well, but that’s not always the case.”

Ms Brady said she was extremely lucky to be treated so quickly. Other young stroke survivors she’s met were left for hours waiting for a diagnosis by doctors who didn’t diagnose a stroke.

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She is holding a 12-hour charity event at the gym today from 8am to 8pm. Members and staff are walking or running on a treadmill for 30 minutes at a time to raise funds for A Stroke of Luck, a charity that gives stroke survivors access to fitness professionals to help with recovery.

To donate click here.

Stray bonfire organisers appeal for more donations

The organisers of the 50th anniversary charity bonfire and fireworks on the Stray have appealed for more donations to ensure a successful event in nine days time.

An online gofundme page set up by Harrogate and District Round Table has so far attracted £1,220 in donations towards a goal of £8,000 with just over a week to go until the event on Saturday, November 6.

There will be a bucket fundraising collection on the night and people will be encouraged to text to donate £5. But with the current total being so short of the goal, the organisers have appealed for a flurry of online donations over the next week.

The event is organised by volunteers, who try to keep costs low but they have to spend money on fireworks, transportation of pallets and road traffic management.

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The £8,000 figure is how much the event costs to put on, and the Round Table always donates any profits to charity. This year’s charity is the Friends of Harrogate Hospital.

John Carter, who is in charge of organising the bonfire for the Round Table this year, told the Stray Ferret:

“We are going to put on a big bonfire and fireworks display. We hope people will enjoy the event after a pretty miserable 18 months.

“There is the online fundraiser but we will have lots of bucket shaking on the night as well as the text to donate. It is the first time we have done the online fundraiser.

“Over the years the amount we have raised on the night has dwindled as people don’t tend to carry cash so we are encouraging donations in other ways.”

Harrogate’s Firecracker Ball cancelled for second year due to covid

A major fundraising event in Harrogate has been cancelled for the second year running due to covid.

The Firecracker Ball has raised £3 million for children’s charity Barnardo’s since 2002.

The spectacular event, which is usually held at Rudding Park Hotel in November, is also one of the highlights of the social calendar.

Each year the ball adopts a different theme in the hope of encouraging people to donate and get involved in the charity auction too.

Barnardo’s, which organises the annual event, has assured people it will return in 2022. In a statement the organising committee said:

“The Firecracker committee reluctantly decided that the Firecracker Ball 2021 had to once more be postponed until we are able to hold our usual spectacular event in 2022. The decision has been a difficult one, as the funds you generously help us to raise have never been more important for Barnardo’s.

“We are making sure that we do our best to raise as much as we can in other ways at such a difficult time for everyone.”

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The previous ball in 2019 raised more than £250,000 for the charity.

The committee said it launched a justgiving page last year so people can still donate towards the work Barnardo’s does in Yorkshire.

Harrogate giant pumpkin to raise money for charity

A Harrogate couple who have grown an absolutely gigantic pumpkin have invited people to guess its weight to raise money for charity.

Ian and Natalie Hutton have raised £300 for St Michael’s Hospice so far but hope as they travel around with the pumpkin that they can raise even more.

The pair have been outside St Michael’s shop on Ripon Road. Today and tomorrow they’re at the Wellington Inn in Darley and will be at Kendalls Farm Butchers on Skipton Road next Friday.

If you cannot visit the pumpkin in person but want to donate then you can do so on JustGiving by clicking or tapping here.

Not your average pumpkin!

For £1 people can guess the weight. Whoever is closest will win a surprise first prize. The second prize is a £30 pork pie voucher from Kendalls and third will take home a scarf from Shine on King’s Road.

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A very proud Mr Hutton, who has been perfecting his pumpkins for the last six years, told the Stray Ferret:

“It’s about choosing the right seeds, getting them in the ground at the right time. Then it takes a lot of luck and a lot of water. I have been giving it about five gallons a day.

“A lot of people ask if we have pumped steroids into it but everything we grow is natural.

“We have lost a couple of friends who were looked after by St Michael’s Hospice so we wanted to give back. Now is the right time to donate, especially after coronavirus curtailed fundraising.”

When the fundraising is over Mr Hutton is going to attempt to carve it for Halloween and take the seeds to try and grow an even bigger pumpkin next year.

Just to give you an idea of the weight of gigantic pumpkins -the current Guiness World Record for heaviest pumpkin is 2,624 pounds and 9.6 ounces, which was grown by Mathias Willemijns in Belgium.