Warming Up The Homeless (WUTH) was started by a group of friends in 2015 to help people without a home across Bexhill, Eastbourne, Hastings and St Leonards.
Its mission is the relief of poverty among the street homeless/rough sleepers and homeless by providing basic items such as sleeping bags, ground sheets, survival sheets, blankets, clothing, food and toiletries.
Bexhill Rotary President Perry Puddefoot presenting £500 to WUTH.
Bexhill Rotary President Perry Puddefoot paid a visit to the charity’s Bexhill centre and presented a £500 donation to the charity.
Another organisation to benefit from the town’s Rotary club was the Strive Café in Sackville Road. Perry brought with him a cheque for £350. This will towards the building of a ramp for wheelchair access to their garden seating area at the rear of the café.
Strive Café is a not-for-profit social enterprise café with a mission to enhance lives of individuals with neuro diversity and learning disability through purposeful paid employment, work experience and meaningful voluntary work.
Meanwhile, the club President is continuing on his target of walking 1,500 miles for charity during his year in office. Perry Puddefoot took around 96,000 steps and 43.5 miles along the Thames Path joined by his wife Alison as part of a two-day walk.
He has already raised over £1,000 whilst on his walks for charities that include Bexhill & Hastings Mencap, Bexhill Foodbank and local youth groups.
Bexhill Rotarian Vernon Findlay has been putting his woodworking skills to work to help Bexhill Heritage renovate the Bandstand on Bexhill’s seafront.
The Bandstand was completed back in 1895 and purchased in due course by Earl De La Warr who surrounded the stand with an enclosure to add comfort for the public attending band performances.
Bexhill Rotarian Vernon Findlay, who has been helping renovate the Bandstand on Bexhill’s seafront.
In 1904 the Earl decided, after complaints from visitors of the discomfort caused by traffic and strong winds, to convert the bandstand to a shelter.
Sadly by the twentieth century the Bandstand was in a sorry state so it was leased to Bexhill Heritage in 2021 which set about the long restoration process, which involved many volunteers including Bexhill Rotarian Vernon.
Vernon Findlay said: “My involvement with the Bandstand was mainly applying my woodworking skills to make new ventilation panels as well as repairs to old timbers.
“I had to make a special jig to cut the trefoil shapes in the timber.”
Vernon is now busy making coasters using some of the mahogany reclaimed from the Bandstand window sills. He has already sold 20 of them with all the proceeds being passed on to a range of charitable causes including Bexhill Foodbank and Warming Up The Homeless.
Thanks to Vernon’s hard work, along with all the other volunteers involved, the Bandstand has been completely restored to its former glory (pictured) and it had its official reopening on April 1st.
