Thank you to local design agency Ego for including Careline as one of their £10k for 10 UK charities – we’re really grateful for their donation of £200 and continued support. Please help Rachel and Lucy who will be taking part in The Peak District Challenge in September, raising more money for us and their other  worthwhile chosen charities – you can find further information on their website http://www.designbyego.co.uk

A big thank you to the Freemason’s (St Oswald’s Lodge) for their very generous donation of £500 – what a lovely a thing to receive in the post on a Monday morning! We’re so pleased and very grateful.

Many thanks to Marston Montgomery village charity for their donation of £100 – it’s much appreciated!

We were fortunate to be awarded £2,277 from the Toyota Manufacturing UK Charitable Trust last week – we’re so grateful to them for their support. We thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony and it was a privilege to stand alongside so many other worthwhile local charities.

Careline  would like to say a huge thank you to the community for continuing  to support us this year.

Early in 2016  the Ashbourne Telegraph published an article explaining that the majority of our funding had been cut and in it we asked for support to help keep the service running. And that’s exactly what you, the community have done!

So many individuals, volunteers, local societies, organisations and businesses have stepped forward to help and for that we are so grateful.  We would particularly like to thank:

Ashbourne Lions

Ashbourne Shrovetide Dance Committee

Ashbourne Singers

Marks & Spencer

Waitrose

The Trustees of the Mrs Elsie Exton Trust

The Old Trust of Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School

Ashbourne Methodist Church

Dovedale Dash

Brailsford & District Ploughing & Hedgecutting Society

Rotary Club of Uttoxeter

Uttoxeter Lions

Uttoxeter Knights

Inner Wheel of Uttoxeter

to name but a few.

We would also like to thank all those people who have been involved in our fundraising events either in volunteering their time or as a guest – you  have contributed enormously to ensuring that we are able to maintain our regular telephone befriending calls to the elderly and most vulnerable members of our society.  This time of year is particularly difficult for many older people with the days being so short. Research tells us that loneliness and a lack of social interaction can be as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day; in addition  more than  half (51%) of all people aged 75+ live alone in the UK and nearly a fifth of those people spend zero hours with other people on a typical day.

We are still searching for that elusive  large scale funding, but thanks to all of our supporters we are able to continue running the service for the foreseeable future.

With very best wishes for 2017

The Staff and  Trustees at Careline.