Community champions help charities offering 'warm places' for people this winter

Community champions from our stores across the UK are helping charities and good causes who are offering 'warm places' for people to meet and socialise this winter.

Asda's charity, the Asda Foundation, is spending over £1.3m to support communities in the run up to Christmas by funding warm spaces, helping to ease increased utility costs, funding activities and providing food. Over half of this is directly supporting community groups with cost of living challenges to help them survive.

One such group to benefit is Pontefract Methodist Church, above, which was awarded £1,320 to help them with their bills this winter.

Our Pontefract store's community champion Emma Kirby who popped along to the church with store manager Vicky Williams said: "This lovely group runs a warm space every Thursday where anyone can go for a lovely warm drink and bowl of soup. It's somewhere safe, warm and friendly. We're so happy to be able to help, especially in these hard times."

Jennie Rigby, community champion at our Swinton store in Manchester, below, called down to meet the amazing team at Who Let The Dads Out and present them with an Asda Foundation cheque for £2,000. She said: "The group has just started a "warm hub" on Wednesdays from 5pm and 8pm in Kings Church which everyone in the community is welcome to attend. So turn your heating off and let someone else cook for you."

Danielle Dean, below, community champion at our Portsmouth store, visited the team at The John Pounds Centre to present them with an Asda Foundation cheque for £500. She said: "They'd applied for the grant to be able to keep the centre open longer each day so that there is a warm space for people in the area to use. The space is also home to a pantry, small business cafe, library as well as a gym, and other spaces that host many groups throughout the week including a particularly sighted group, food cycle group and many more."

Our Wrexham store's community champion Mary Williams, below, presented an Asda Foundation cost of living grant for £1,000 to the Caia Park Partnership. She said: "The money will be used to provide Christmas family food hampers for over 100 people within the Wrexham area."

At Wolverhampton, our store's community champion Angie Barnes, below, went along to Wolverhampton Samaritans to present them with an Asda Foundation grant of £500 which will help with the rising costs of keeping the centre open.

And the team at Liverpool 6 Centre were delighted when our Breck Road store's community champion Christine McNally, below, called in to hand over an Asda Foundation cheque for £2,000 to help with their extra utility costs.

Our Bolton store's community champion Christine Baldwin was delighted to present an Asda Foundation cost of living grant of £1,000 to Bolton Lads and Girls Club, below, who will use to provide hot meals for the young people attending the Christmas Holiday Club. Christine said: "The cheque was a nice surprise for the club and it was presented to them as they were bag packing at our store to raise funds for Derian House Hospice."

In Barry, our store's community champion Charlene Duddridge surprised the team at Cadog's Corner Development Group with an Asda Foundation cheque for £1,400.

Charlene said: "The charity runs many projects enhancing the health and wellbeing of people in the surrounding area and this funding will support their Pay as You Feel shop and van which travels around delivering bags of shopping to families who may be struggling due to the cost of living crisis. The funds will also support family cooking sessions offering opportunities for children and their parents to come together to learn new skills such as cooking, food hygiene and improve food literacy. This in turn also develops the children's entrepreneurial skills as these healthy meals and snacks are then served in their community cafe, which is open to all."

And Jon Coutts-Walker, community champion at our Long Eaton store, below, was delighted to present the Canaan Trust with an Asda Foundation cost of living grant for £1,800.

Jon said: "They will use the funding to build food parcels to hand out over Christmas to people who may have otherwise gone without, so they can still enjoy the festive celebrations and have a good hearty meal on the table. The Canaan Trust work endlessly to support our community and it's a pleasure to lend a helping hand to the fantastic work they do."

Heather Turner, community champion at our Hyson Green store, was on hand to award Radford Care Group with an Asda Foundation cheque for £650 towards their increased food costs. She said: "The group is incredibly active and gives its attendees the chance to socialise, craft, play games and eat two good meals a day in great company."

Our Swindon Haydon community champion Jane Atkin, below, was delighted to call in at Big Breakfast Plus to present the group with a cheque from the Asda foundation for a cost of living grant for £1,000. The group will use the money to support homeless people with a hot breakfast each morning at the Pilgrim Centre in Swindon.