Yorkshire Housing has thrown its support behind children’s bed poverty charity, Zarach, as its new fundraising partner for the next 12 months.
The Leeds-based charity was founded by teacher Bex Wilson after she discovered some of her pupils did not have a bed to sleep in. Since then, Zarach has worked with schools across the region to deliver beds and additional family support as part of its mission to end child bed poverty.
So far this academic year, Zarach has delivered over 3,000 beds to families in need and over 8,000 since the charity launched in 2017.
Their mission links in closely with our vision to make it possible for people to have a place they’re proud to call home – making this new fundraising partnership a perfect match.
This comes after £27,446 was raised for our previous Charity of the Year, Andy’s Man Club, with colleagues taking on the Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge last month as a final fundraiser for the men's suicide prevention charity.
Zarach was named as our new fundraising partner after a company-wide vote and an initial nomination by our Change Communications Lead, Lynsey Pearson, who said: “I'm absolutely delighted that Zarach have been chosen as our new charity of the year – and I want to give a huge thanks to all our colleagues who voted.
“The charity is a fantastic cause which is very close to our hearts, so I know we're going to make a big difference to struggling families across our region.”
Andy Peers, Chief Executive at Zarach, added: “As a charity that was born in Yorkshire, it's amazing that our region's social housing provider has chosen to embrace and support us in this way.
“We know that a lot of Yorkshire Housing’s customers are the families that we support. The synergy is already there and we are so excited that they have seen this.
“On our mission to end child bed poverty, we hope that what we can do together over the next year sets out the blueprint for other social housing providers to follow. We believe that in the year ahead hundreds more children will be lifted out of bed poverty due to this partnership.”
Across the UK, there are around 681,000 families with children that have had to share a bed with their parent, their parent’s partner or a sibling, because they cannot afford another bed.
That is according to Barnardo's 'No Crib for a Bed' report which also found over 281,000 families have had to choose between paying for heating or food and getting a new bed or bedding for their child in the last 12 months.