Citizens Advice East Herts holds fundraising walks around Bishop’s Stortford to boost crowdfunder

Citizens Advice East Herts’ head of communications and fundraising Esther McWatters writes for the Indie

As a local charity, we are always trying to find ways of raising money so we can run our free advice service.

This year, our team of volunteers and staff decided to go the extra mile on a series of walks across East Herts. We’ve walked around Bishop’s Stortford, exploring the riverbank, parks and countryside that we’re lucky to have on our doorstep. The support from the town has been brilliant and we’ve even been joined by Cllr Calvin Horner.

With the support of families, friends and local community donors, our crowdfunder has now raised over £7,500.

The money will go towards helping anyone who needs it locally. People like Rosie (name changed), who came to our Contact Centre at the Methodist Church. She lives in Bishop’s Stortford’s Central ward with her husband and two children.

Rosie was very stressed because her husband was having to work seven days a week just to keep the household going and this was affecting his health. Rosie has health issues herself, but wanted to find some part-time work to help with the bills as the family were struggling to manage.

Rosie was signposted to us by her GP. She was overwhelmed by her situation and asked for help with benefits. She had already tried to make a Universal Credit claim, but found the process too difficult and was worried about her existing legacy benefits.

We added Rosie to our task list and an adviser called her the following day. We carried out a benefits check and found that Rosie would be better off claiming Universal Credit. We advised her to call our Help to Claim line for help starting her claim and to apply to the council for Council Tax Support.

We also signposted Rosie to the Step2Skills supported employment programme, for help in finding suitable work, and to the Exchange at the Baptist Church for help obtaining good second-hand items.

If you want to support our work, please visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-citizens-advice-east-herts. Every pound given will be doubled by Aviva until August 4 so, if you’re able, now is a great time to support our work.

If you need advice, the quickest way is to call our message line on 01920 459944, Monday to Thursday, or visit www.citizensadviceeastherts.org.uk for our advice options.

If you don’t have phone or email or need extra support, the Citizens Advice Contact Centre is at Bishop’s Stortford Methodist Church in South Street every Tuesday from 11am to 1pm.