Catching Lives Latest News: April 2026
- 17 hours ago
- 3 min read
This is your April update from Catching Lives. This month, the day centre has been very busy, with an average of 40 individuals accessing for support every day. With higher demand, we are running low on lots of essential items! Keep reading to find out how you can help or make a donation to Catching Lives.
Can you help?
Due to a steady increase in demand for our services this month, we're running out of essential items for our kitchen! Volunteers prepare and serve breakfast and lunch every day at the day centre, and have provided over 4,000 meals already this year.
We rely on donations to keep our kitchen stocked so that we can provide essentials for people who are homeless. If you can, we would really appreciate donations of:
Instant coffee
Sugar
Peanut butter
Hearty cup-a-soups (e.g. leek and potato, minestrone, chicken noodle)
Orange marmalade
Toothbrushes
Face flannels / washcloths
Bath towels (including secondhand but still soft!)
Men's underwear and clothing
We are grateful for any donations, which can be delivered to our day centre every day between 9am-4pm (1pm on Wednesdays). To order directly from our Amazon Wishlist, or to see the full list, click here.
Secret Postcard Event: 2 weeks to go!
Our Secret Postcard fundraiser is on Thursday 14th May. If you want to come but haven't booked your tickets yet, now's your chance! The event is at BoConcept on Orange Street from 6pm. There are over 100 unique postcards for you to buy, all designed by local artists and creatives - you won't know who designed yours until you buy it! Find out more and book your tickets here.
Welcome to our new trustees
This month, we welcomed 3 new trustees to our Board: Niloufar Hajilou, Edd Withers (pictured at the day centre) and Laura Hollywood. Trustees are legally responsible for the charity, and for setting the vision, mission and strategy. We look forward to working with them on developing a new strategy this year!
Good luck to our Trekkers!
The Kent Charity Trek is taking place in just 2 weeks! Our very own CEO, Tasmin, is taking on the 50km trek for Catching Lives, raising money for people who are homeless. She is joined this year by Reverend Jo Richards and her husband, as well as a group from Morgan Sindall Construction, and former volunteer Steph.
We wish everybody walking for Catching Lives the best of luck for the big day, and hope you get good weather! You can read more about the fantastic people taking on the Trek for Catching Lives, and donate to their fundraising pages here.
We're part of the Waitrose Community Scheme!
Thank you to Canterbury Waitrose for including Catching Lives in the green tokens community scheme for this round! We will be in store as one of the chosen causes until the end of June, so if you are shopping in Canterbury Waitrose, you can put your token in the left-hand pot to support us.
Thank you
Thank you to everyone that has donated money or items to Catching Lives this month. We rely on your donations to keep our services running, and we wouldn't be able to do it without you. Thank you to everyone who donated to our Winter Appeal - our final total was £25,255! We are so grateful for your support.
Thank you to Simon Langton Girls' Grammar, who raised an incredible £1,956.88 through their annual fundraising activities for Catching Lives. Thank you to the Canterbury & Coastal Breathe Easy group, who invited Catching Lives to talk at this month's meeting and donated £136.40. Thank you to the customers of Barham Village Store who donated their spare change to Catching Lives, raising £73.81.
Thank you to everyone that came to our Open Evening last week - we hope you found it interesting. If you couldn't make this one, keep your eyes peeled for upcoming events in our newsletter and on social media!
Keep in touch
For regular updates, please keep an eye on our website, Facebook and Instagram for more updates until we write to you again in May. If you're not subscribed to our monthly newsletter, you can sign up here.
