Bethany Christian Trust is Scottish Charity of the Year 2009. Their services stop people being homeless and stop people becoming homeless. Help them to transform lives and revitalise communities in 2010 by giving their items.

http://www.bethanychristiantrust.com/

Bfriends is the largest befriending service for Scottish children aged 5-15 who are experiencing difficulties at home, school or in the community. One of bfriends' 100 volunteers works at Story. The charity has three bases across Edinburgh. The bases provide young people and their befrienders with a safe place to play games, cook, draw and have lots of fun.

www.bfriends.org.uk

Bfriends is the largest befriending service for Scottish children aged
5-15 who are experiencing difficulties at home, school or in the
community. One of bfriends' 100 volunteers works at Story. The charity
has three bases across Edinburgh. The bases provide young people and
their befrienders with a safe place to play games, cook, draw and have
lots of fun. 

www.bfriends.org.uk

Bfriends is the largest befriending service for Scottish children aged
5-15 who are experiencing difficulties at home, school or in the
community. One of bfriends' 100 volunteers works at Story. The charity
has three bases across Edinburgh. The bases provide young people and
their befrienders with a safe place to play games, cook, draw and have
lots of fun. 

www.bfriends.org.uk

As the UK's leading feline welfare charity, Cats Protection rehomes and reunites 55,000 cats and kittens every year. Two members of Story have adopted kittens from Cats Protection. Knowing the tireless work they do as volunteers, we wanted to find out how we could help our friends (furry and otherwise) at the North Ayrshire branch.

www.northayrshire.cats.org.uk

Children Unite is a new international charity set-up to promote the rights of child domestic servants worldwide and help protect them from exploitation and abuse.

Contact the Elderly was established in 1965 to relieve the acute loneliness of frail, elderly people living alone with limited or inadequate social support. Volunteers offer a simple yet hugely effective act of friendship, as each month drivers take otherwise-housebound guests to the home of volunteer hosts, where all enjoy the warmth of friendship for a few hours. One of the Story team is a volunteer.

www.contact-the-elderly.org.uk

Dunedin Harbour provides short-term accommodation and support for homeless people. We work closely with other professional services to ensure the best support for our residents, particularly with issues such as alcohol and drug use, offending, health, education and employment. Staff at Dunedin Harbour also provides assistance in finding more appropriate long term accommodation, and support for additional identified and agreed support needs.

Dunedin Harbour Hostel
4 Parliament Street
Edinburgh
EH6 6EB 

We are a voluntary sector, community based adult education centre providing educational opportunities for disadvantaged groups, offering a wide range of programmes in a city centre location. We help people who:

• a negative experience at school, or who may have missed out on education altogether
• are on low incomes
• have disabilities
• speak English as another language

Our cafe provides good, low cost hot food.

Fresh Start helps people who have been homeless to set up their home and settle in the community.   

Now in their tenth year their services offer: practical and emotional support; training and employment; essential household goods.

The Starter Packs service re-uses donated household goods that volunteers make up into standardised packs: this service helps 2,500 households per year to set up their home and get back on their feet.

 www.freshstartweb.org.uk/things_that_we_need.htm    

Hearts&Minds is the charity that provides a Clowndoctor service in
Scotland. Its aim is to improve the quality of life and well-being of
children in hospital and hospice care by encouraging communication,
interaction and laughter. It also provides the Elderflowers
programme, which uses clown-based arts therapy to engage the imagination and
brighten the day of elderly dementia patients.  For children - or elderly
people with dementia - their aim is to improve the hospital
experience, help them see beyond their illness, make a meaningful connection and make them smile.

http://www.heartsminds.org.uk

The Jack Kane Community Education Centre is situated within the Greater Craigmillar area, on the North East side of Edinburgh. The community of Craigmillar is considered to be the forth most deprived area in Scotland. However, whilst suffering from pockets of high levels of deprivation, the centre has many dynamic and motivated people actively committed to creating social change.

The centre will enable, support and encourage people through educational, supportive and preventative methods in order for them to find their own way in life by assisting them to realise and fulfill their self identified potential.

www.cafek.org

Men in Mind is a Health in Mind service that develops support services for black and minority ethnic men, raising awareness of emotional health issues amongst communities and service providers.
www.health-mind.org.uk

North West Cancer Research Fund is an independent regional charity that have been raising vital funding for research into causes of cancer for over 60 years. Our research takes place at the University of Liverpool, University of Bangor and Lancaster University with dedicated fundraising committees though North of Wales and North West England. Cancer effects 1 in 3 of us; anyone, any age, any race and it doesn't care who. This is why we put all our efforts into raising funding to find the causes of cancer because if we don't know the cause we can't find the cure. 
www.nwcrf.co.uk

Oxfam works with others to overcome poverty and suffering. Amazingly, you can help them do that by donating your old bras! Bras are complex to manufacture so very few developing countries have the facilities to make their own. Oxfam is the only major charity to operate its own textile sorting facility, and they can ensure that the bras they don't sell in their shops go to people in Africa who really need them.

www.oxfam.org.uk/donate/shops/wastesaver.html

To enhance the quality of life for older and other vulnerable adults in North Edinburgh by continuing to develop services that enable active community participation, which encourage independence and which measurably reduce isolation. 
www.pepequalities.co.uk

Pilton Equalities Project
3 West Pilton Park
Edinburgh
EH4

Queenscourt Hospice provides specialist palliative care to adults with far advanced, progressive and incurable illnesses. It also provides an environment where life can be lived to the full by patients and their families. Their services are FREE, but that means relying on the support of volunteers and fundraisers to keep going. One of the team at Story has a close personal connection with this wonderful hospice, which is why we want to help.

www.queenscourt.org.uk

This project, delivered by Spartans Community Football Academy and Bfriends in partnership with CLAN (City Literacy and Numeracy) is celebrating Children and Young People’s love of the beautiful game, in North Edinburgh, through the compilation of a book for distribution to local primary schools.  

A group of up to 10 children and young people, aged between 10 – 15 / 16 years, will put together the book over a period of 7 weeks beginning on Friday 6th November and finishing up on Friday 18th December 2009. Positive outcomes include:

Children and young people will have increased their skills and knowledge in the use of ICT to communicate information.


Increased confidence and sense of achievement by local children and young people when book is completed / published. 


There will be further opportunities for older young people to work as Peer Educators rolling the book out to Primary Schools - leading story telling sessions with younger children. 

The Royal Blind School provides care, support and education to young visually impaired people from across Scotland. Music is particularly important to blind children and granting this wish will make a real different to their lives.

This is a call to arms – your left or right, we don’t mind which.

The SNBTS provides life saving blood for thousands of people in Scotland, including premature babies, cancer patients and A&E patients every year. The need for blood donations is urgent and constant. Not only is the SNBTS one of our clients, lots of us have been blood donors for years. We decided it was time to roll up our sleeves and give again this Christmas.

www.scotblood.co.uk

The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Scottish SPCA) is Scotland's animal welfare charity. Their objectives are to prevent cruelty to animals and encourage kindness and humanity in their treatment. As an animal welfare charity, they receive no government or lottery funding and rely on public donations to continue their vital work rescuing and rehoming Scotland's abandoned, neglected and defenceless animals.

www.scottishspca.org

Shelter Scotland has over 11 years experience offering intensive and highly successful Housing Support to some of Scotland’s most vulnerable families. In the worsening economic climate, never has the need been greater. Any help you can provide will help us provide housing advice and support to those who need it most this Christmas.

www.shelter.org.uk

Sikh Sanjog works with women and families of the Sikh community and other Black and Minority Ethnic women. Our Learning Hub provides a range of training opportunities with an employability focus.  We also provide training to volunteers and staff of our social enterprise community café. This equipment will allow us to provide a much fuller training programme and expand the programme as demand high.

The mum of one of our copywriters works at St Columba’s Hospice in Edinburgh, which strives to improve the quality of life of people who are terminally ill and to support their families. In 2010, St Columba’s will begin the first phase of an essential rebuild project that will cost £26million. St. Columba’s need to provide a new, visionary hospice which will ensure that they can continue to provide patients with the comfort, dignity and highest standard of care that they have always delivered.


Since opening in 1977, St Columba’s has depended on the generosity and goodwill of local supporters to continue to provide this crucial service. Now you can be one of them.

The Mission to Seafarers cares for the spiritual and practical welfare of all seafarers, whatever their need. During the winter, one of those needs is for warm clothing for Filipino seafarers who arrive in Scottish ports on their way to the Baltic Sea, desperately ill-prepared for the freezing temperatures they face. When we heard about The Mission to Seafarers Scotland’s urgent appeal we felt sure we could help.

www.missiontoseafarers.org

Family learning at the centre works with parents in local schools delivering Bite-Size Learning course and Bite-Size Healthy Lifestyle course. We encourage parents/carers to join in Going Forth in the centre and have created a vibrant, all-inclusive learning experience for local people. The children's gym equipment would help in our healthy lifestyle drive.