Choosing Love this Black Friday

We love what we do here. Harriet and I are bed makers through and through, we’re always discussing new colours, bedroom trends, the latest thing in sustainable fabrics and how to style and what to put on our beds next. We also know that we are lucky to have a bed, pillows and a business, so we have decided that we will do all we can as we go to help others and be kind to our planet.

One of our chosen charities is Choose Love. An amazing organisation, founded in 2015 after a small group of celebrities took to social media to help misplaced people in Calais. The charity grew from there as Help Refugees and changed its name in 2021 to Choose Love.

‘Choose Love does whatever it takes to provide refugees and displaced people with everything from lifesaving search and rescue boats to food and legal advice. We elevate the voices and visibility of refugees and galvanise public support for agile community organisations providing vital support to refugees along migration routes globally.’

Today, Choose Love works with 300 partners all around the world, including 26 projects here in the UK. They have raised £47.5 million to date (13/06/2022)

Black Friday has become a big thing here in the UK, some hate it, some love it. In 2021 we decided that we would give 5 % of your pennies spent with us over the Black Friday Sale to Choose Love. We raised a fabulous £27,000 and sent it their way in December 2021.

I have been catching up with Philli Boyle from Choose Love to find out where your/ our black Friday donation has been spent, we thought you might like to know too.

Seeds of Humanity Hellas (SOH) is a non-governmental organization aiming to provide emergency humanitarian assistance and primary health care services to refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants arriving in Greece.

The clinic provides primary medical and dental care including triage and appropriate treatment, medication dispensing and preventive care. As most of the dental issues we have noticed among the refugees result from poor oral hygiene, oral hygiene workshops with distribution of dental hygiene products are organized on a regular basis. Refugee children are entertained by activities held in SOH premises while rehabilitation workshops take place which are aimed at older beneficiaries.

Irida Womens Center works to create safe, equitable, more inclusive, communities within Greece, by contributing to the empowerment of refugee and migrant women. They work to create a society that reflects our community centre: a warm, inclusive, participatory space, where women are empowered and become agents of change within their lives, families, and the community at large.

This donation contributed to food and winter supplies for women and children in Thessaloniki.

The Association LOGS – Social Initiatives Group is a grass-roots organization settled in Timisoara, western Romania, that promotes integration of vulnerable migrant groups, fights human trafficking and uses education as means of overcoming social vulnerability. They provide vital support to people on the move and those who are applying for asylum in Romania, by distributing food vouchers and clothing, providing WASH facilities and medical assistance from their ‘Casa Logs’, and creating community activities and outings for young people. The Casa LOGS acts as a community centre, where there is a bank of clothes and hygiene products for vulnerable people, a sanitation space, access to showers and laundry, and basic medical assistance for the increasing number of asylum seekers in Romania. The team also support unaccompanied minors with hostels who otherwise would be sleeping on the streets, and provide holistic 1:1 support, using their collective expertise in forced migration, social and psychological counselling, education and training, and prevention of human trafficking,

This grant contributed to their frontline delivery of food items, food vouchers and medical assistance to support people on the move arriving in Timisoara.

We will skip through this week knowing that we have helped. Big thanks to Choose Love for working hard to find the people that need the help. We are looking forward to helping them further, with your help of course.

Have a great day.

Molly