Help and Kindness
Where can you find out about the Warm Hubs near where you live in Dorset?
One answer is the wonderful website Help and Kindness, which also lists all kinds of other help, resources and support offered by organisations large and small, across the county. You can find out where you can go in your local area to give or get support with the Cost of Living Crisis. Warm spaces and places, affordable and emergency food, information, advice and guidance.
Help and Kindness was created in 2019 by Jon Sloper and his partner, Nicola Hembrey, as a response to the increasing needs among a wide range of people in the community, in the context of the reducing statutory funded services. They knew that there was a lot of goodwill, kindness and support but often in separate places, with little knowledge of other services in the area so they decided to set up a project so that the providers of any supportive service or resource could easily register and share what they were doing and those needing help could find all the information they needed in one place.
The project is largely funded by the founders but when providers saw how useful it was in sharing information across the sectors, grants were given by Dorset Council, Dorchester Poverty Action, and Dorset Community Action.
Help and Kindness was in place when COVID19 struck the county and was very useful for finding out what local help and services were available.
The next opportunity to share the range of resources was when the county welcomed its first Ukrainian refugees and hosts needed to know where they could go for information and where their guests could meet with other Ukrainians for social contact and advice.
Help and Kindness sum up what they are trying to:
We want to make it easier to get help, easier to give help, and easier to work together to build projects that make Dorset an even better place to live. We're engaged with the public, private and community / voluntary sectors and we cover all kinds of needs. We hope to help to improve everyone's wellbeing, independence and sense of community across the county.
Explore their site at www.helpandkindnessco.uk
If you would like to help to publicise this wonderful resource, there is a downloadable poster here:
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