Time to help the needy — it's in our Mackem blood
12/02/2024 01:00 AM
How Sunderland Community Soup Kitchen transforms lives – and how you can make a difference this Christmas.
It's that time of year again… the time that makes me so very proud to be associated with Roker Report. The time when we keep shouting for The Lads, but in parallel we do all we can to help some of the most vulnerable people in our home town. It's Sunderland Community Soup Kitchen fundraiser month.
You may well ask, why do we do stuff like this?
In my honest opinion, we Mackems have core values running through the blood in our veins, which makes charity appeals like this incredibly important to us.
Our little mate Bradley was not a one-off (and he will, of course, never be forgotten) — we Sunderland fans see things that need our help and our hearts, and we cannot stop ourselves from throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at them.
To help these incredible charitable causes, we take advantage of the fact that anyone who meets a Mackem just warms naturally to us. We lean on the loveability of our regional accent and our charisma and charm, so that organisations like SCSK benefit. I'm not shy about that… I'm just chuffed it works.
This approach sees repeated success partly as we are very friendly people, who give time and our kindness to friends and strangers alike. We are loyal and generous to causes we care about; while we are humble, we are incredibly strong-willed and hard working, and will fight for what we believe in.
Truth is, while all of the above is bang on about how fab we Mackems all are, our region is suffering.
The north east of England is one of the worst areas for child poverty in the whole of the UK, as has been much published by organisations like Children North East.
The shocking stats back this up - forty percent of kids in our region are now seen as below the poverty line. That's two kids in every five in our streets. Four of them ten kids playing a game of five a side in the parks across our region cannot afford the basics a human being needs to thrive.
This was just over one in four in 2018… we need to halt this slide.
And this isn't just a Sunderland thing - Boro, Newcastle, Cleveland, Hartlepool and many more areas in our region feature in the worst places for kids to thrive due to poverty levels.
Charities like Sunderland Community Soup Kitchen are vital in changing the lives of these families. It's changing lives that this is really all about.
If kids are hungry, they struggle to grow and to develop how they could, increasing the risk they will stay close to the poverty line as adults too.
If kids are hungry, parents generally are too - families who haven't yet discovered the likes of Andrea's team can quickly fall into financial trouble in trying to just be a parent. This can easily spiral into debt, mental health issues and homelessness, with risks of kids going into care, and a million other challenges.
Is there anything worse than separation from your loved ones, when each other can often be all you really have?
Roker Report have worked with Andrea and the team for a good few years now, and we all know first hand how much of a difference they make for families reaching such points of desperation.
They aren't just a soup kitchen for the homeless - they are a pivotal point in our city and in so many of these lives, feeding, clothing and warming these neighbours of ours while advising and signposting them to help that may well make the difference to break the cycle long term.
The bowl of healthy hot food you help Andrea and her amazing team serve to a young mum and her kids could be the meal where that same young woman finds a way a secure a place to stay longer term, in safety and warmth. A place to rebuild her life and her hopes for her kids, to do all they can together to break the chains that could well hold them back for decades to come.
The great thing is, this is easy for you to help with. All you need to do is contribute whatever you can to the cause.
A couple of quid, a fiver, a tenner, whatever you can really. Charities like Andreas cannot exist in the current climate without people like us. That's sad, but brutally true.
Why not think of a way to help with a small personal sacrifice? Maybe miss out on a Starbucks coffee a couple of times this week and send that six or seven quid or so to SCSK?
Buy one less box of beers for your Xmas get together and send that tenner to Andrea.
Look out for the next collection and maybe take some food to the next match day, to pass to the team in their van. Even just say hello when you pass them outside the SOL - they are wonderful people and appreciate us all.
If nothing else, please just share this appeal with your family, friends and work mates and increase the awareness of those around you about how wonderful people like Andrea and the SCSK team are.
The people who give their time and energy to Sunderland Community Soup Kitchen are selfless, modern-day saints who help the most desperate souls without judgement or criticism.
Do anything you can to help them, please.
Thanks for your generosity.
