Charity: £3m funding for housing projects; Record year for LoveBrum; Hospice marks 110th anniversary

Three West Midlands charities will share more than £3m from the Heart of England Community Foundation after anonymous donors provided a massive boost to its Building Better Lives programme.

Building Better Lives focuses on the need for purpose-built housing for vulnerable people across the region.

YMCA Birmingham will embark on a project to build 27 self-contained move-on flats for its residents, St Basils will open a brand-new location in Coventry that will provide 32 units of accommodation to young people at risk of homelessness, and Black Country Women’s Aid will be able to extend its services.

The Heart of England Community Foundation usually distributes around £2.7m a year. Anonymous donors had provided £4m and then added a further £1.58m after seeing what was planned.

The Foundation’s chief executive Tina Costello said: “The need for additional housing is the third most talked about topic in the Houses of Parliament, behind Brexit and climate change. The anonymous donors were clear in how they wanted their generous donation to be spent and chose the Foundation to develop and implement their ambitions, making it a reality.

“The work of YMCA Birmingham, St Basil’s in Coventry, and Black Country Women’s Aid cover the breadth of our region, and each focus on relieving the pressures felt by those feeling the pinch of the housing crisis most: from homeless adults and children, to those who have suffered domestic abuse. Being able to support them with our largest grant ever is something that the Foundation is immensely proud of.”

LoveBrum has announced its best year ever, donating £73,000 to local causes in 2019.

The charity uses small donations to support projects across Birmingham that deliver real change. Last year it increased its financial support by 20%.

Every penny raised from individual memberships and fundraising goes straight to these chosen causes.

Paul Mitchell, executive director at LoveBrum, said: “It’s been our most successful year to date in terms of fundraising; all of us at LoveBrum really want to make a difference to lives in Birmingham, and the generous donations will help these causes to be able to continue the incredible work they do.”

Initiatives that received donations during 2019 included Little Heroes Wear Masks, a scheme running at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Charity to provide young cancer patients with a personalised radiography mask, Eloquent Praise & Empowerment Dance Company, which teaches all styles of dance to children in Birmingham, and DiscoInclusive, an inclusive disco that brings adults with impairments and disabilities together.

Birmingham’s John Taylor Hospice is this year celebrating its 110th anniversary.

The hospice cares for around 2,000 patients each year as well as providing support and wellbeing for their families and friends.

This year’s special events include a Secret Garden Ball in June, a Summer Party in July, a Sunset Walk during the summer and its annual Light up a Life in December.

There will also be a citywide art project with an exhibition planned for later in the year as well as a celebration party in the autumn.

Hospice chief executive Penny Venables said: “John Taylor Hospice is unique in its history. We were the first non-denominational hospice in the country and were founded by people in the city who recognised the need for a home in the Midlands which could provide care for patients at the end of their lives.

“More than a century later we are still receiving funding from kind and generous people and companies who give time and money so we can continue to provide much-needed specialist care for patients and their families.”

John Taylor was founded in 1910 by the people of Birmingham who fundraised to provide a “home of rest for the dying”.

The hospice, which is one of the oldest in the country, was named after Birmingham’s pioneering women’s gynaecologist John Taylor and initially cared only for women with gynaecological cancers.

After the Second World War, the hospice moved from Sparkhill into The Grange in Erdington. It began caring for men in the 1970s.