FEP boosts Christmas for families supported by local charity

The plant made its biggest-ever single donation to the local branch of the nationwide charity which provides expert support to help families with young children through their challenging times.

Part of the £10,000 donation was used by Home-Start Cowdenbeath Area towards its annual Christmas appeal, enabling it to set up a magical Santa’s Grotto giving younger children the chance to meet Santa, have photos taken and receive a special Christmas gift. The rest of the funding will be used by the charity to provide ongoing support to parents and their children who have been suffering from isolation and loneliness due to the Covid pandemic.

When the charity heard that it was to receive the funding, Susan Capaldi, Manager at Home-Start, and her team were overcome with emotion. “This is a phenomenal amount of money for a small charity like us and we were all in tears when we found out,” she said. 

“As well as helping our Christmas Appeal, which will give some children the chance to see Santa for the first time due to the pandemic, we want to ensure this fantastic donation has a lasting legacy. “We will use it to offer one-to-one and group support to those parents and children whose mental health and wellbeing have been affected due to isolation and loneliness. In particular new parents who did not have the same face-to-face support because of lockdown. 

“Although we continued to offer online and telephone support and some outdoor meetings, it is not the same as regular contact, so that is what we will be building up, with activity sessions in smaller groups and access to support from our staff and volunteers. We can’t thank FEP enough for this donation which will help change a lot of lives.” 

Martin Burrell, Plant Manager, said: “We are delighted to be able to help Home-Start which we know does a huge amount of good work in our local community. “This is the biggest single donation we have ever given to a charity and we know that, in these very difficult times when a lot of families are really struggling with loneliness, it will be put to good use.”