Uckfield Lions Supporting Local Causes
The people of Uckfield and the surrounding villages are a generous community and the Uckfield & District Lions generally raise in excess of £30,000 a year from the various fundraising activities and events. Every penny we raise goes to support local causes, our various community services, certain Lions activities in the wider community. A small amount goes to the Lions Clubs International Foundation (where money goes direct to Lions Clubs coping with disasters and projects such as eyesight, immunization and education all around the world). An example of this in action was back in 2000, when Uckfield was flooded, the Lions Clubs International Foundation offered money to Uckfield & District Lions to help with immediate relief and essential supplies for the victims.
The local causes that we support can be described in eight categories:
The Elderly
We contribute where we can to help looking after the elderly in our community, for example in running outings & cream teas, use of minibus (with drivers) for Housebound and other “friendship” clubs, donations to care homes for particular projects, Care for the Carers and others.
Hospices
We regularly make donations to the half dozen hospices within our area, usually for specific projects or purchases, for example, we have recently donated money for garden plants & furniture, and for memory boxes.
Poverty
We support Kids Count and Baby2Baby in their activities providing relief for hard up families and we are in touch with local organizations in community care who know they can ask for donations to help local (anonymous) residents in particular difficult circumstances.
Health / Disability
Apart from our own efforts in areas of healthcare and disability, we regularly support many local charitable / voluntary organizations doing amazing things for our disabled residents. Recently we have supported Children’s Respite Trust, Bevern Trust, Headway, Starfish Project, Sussex Support Services, Epilepsy Sussex, Uckfield Blind Club and many more.
And of course the Lions Clubs in the South East continue to support the KSS Air Ambulance with procurement of much needed equipment.
Youth
The Lions Club has a junior (school based) branch called Leos but we also support local Scouts, Guides, ATC, football clubs and other youth oriented groups / projects such as WealdenWorks. We support a youth exchange scheme organized at District level. We have supported the Uckfield Youth Club and intend to continue to do so if & when it is revived.
Schools
Apart from donations to particular schools for particular projects we also engage with other clubs and organizations in running the ROAR Competition, Safety in Action, LifeSkills.
Individuals
We occasionally make grants to local individuals, for example in difficult circumstances, coping with a disability, PTSD, respite, a personal fund raiser or a volunteering project.
The proportion of our funds going to each category will vary from year to year but, for example, in 2019-20 it looked like this
