It’s that time of year when we look back and reflect on our work. It’s been challenging to summarise all our activities in one place as we’ve been so busy! But we’re pleased to share with you our newly published Impact Report, demonstrating the difference we’ve made during the last financial year, from April 2021 until the end of March 2022.

We’re proud of all our students for their achievements, our staff for their commitment and positivity, our volunteers for their invaluable help to run our services, and our funders for their continued support.

We hope you enjoy reading the stories and updates. If you’d like to have a physical copy sent to you in the post please email rachelh@sharecommunity.org.uk with your address.

We’re delighted to receive funding from The National Lottery Community Fund to develop our home cooking skills project, and ensure our students learn the skills to make healthy, budget-friendly recipes to help beat the cost-of-living crisis. We'll run special sessions at our bespoke accessible training kitchen at our Brixton site. Students will learn everything from planning what to cook, making shopping lists, buying ingredients, and preparing and cooking their meals.

Last month we held our annual Share Awards ceremony following a three-year break due to the pandemic. The awards recognise and celebrate the steps each student has taken towards personal development and independent living.

The ceremony took place at the Wandsworth Civic Suite and we were joined by the Mayor of London, Jeremy Ambache, and Marsha de Cordova, Labour MP for Battersea, who helped present the award certificates. We had a wonderful day celebrating and dancing, and we enjoyed a fabulous lunch complete with birthday cupcakes in honour of Share’s 50th birthday.

We’re immensely grateful to Minar Jewellers in Tooting who are helping to raise funds for Share. Customers of the family-run Tooting business can opt to top up payments for their purchases with a donation to Share.

Minar Jewellers are old friends of Share, being part of the Tooting Business Network, an organisation which has been supporting our work for a number of years. Minar approached us to go even further with their support, and we’re immensely grateful to Pravin and the team for their generous offer that will make a positive difference to the services we run.

Ho ho ho! We were certainly feeling festive at our Christmas market recently. We wanted to share our students’ creativity and provide quality festive products for our friends and neighbours to buy. Our arts group designed prints, notebooks, Christmas cards, mugs, and gorgeous soy candles – they chose the scents and designed the artwork on the candle jars. The catering team baked gingerbread cookies and mince pies, and the horticulture team foraged materials and created stunning natural wreaths and table decorations. We ran the markets over two days at our Clapham Junction site and at the Share garden. Thank you to everyone who came, we’d definitely like to run these again in future!

There are still a few items available to buy, if you’re interested please contact Natalie on natalier@sharecommunity.org.uk

Many of you will already know that our much-loved and respected colleague Karen Miles is leaving Share at the end of the year. Karen started as a volunteer with our Go Anywhere, Do Anything project back in 2015, before becoming a permanent member of staff as Head of Wellbeing, and a valued member of Share’s Senior Management Team.

Throughout her time at Share, Karen has gained the respect and admiration of colleagues, parents and carers, social care professionals and most of all, our students. Karen has gone above and beyond for Share, demonstrating unwavering commitment, and a calm, considerate approach. She has supported both students and colleagues through some challenging times, and we will miss her professionalism, empathy, and strength. 

Karen is leaving to explore new areas, and to continue her ambition to make sex and relationships more accessible to people with learning disabilities, and to improve accessible communication in wider society. We wish her all the very best for the future.

If you’d like to stay in touch with Karen, please connect with her on LinkedIn 

Don't forget that Share has been selected by the Co-op Local Community Fund as a cause for Co-op members to support. This means that for every £1 Co-op members spend on selected Co-op branded products, 1p will go towards funding our vital work.

You can help us by shopping at the Co-op and selecting Share as your cause. You’ll first need to become a Co-op member, which is like signing up for a supermarket loyalty card, and costs just £1. Then either join online or download the Co-op app, choose Share as your cause and when you shop at the Co-op, not only will they donate valuable funds to Share, but you’ll also earn Co-op rewards for yourself too.

If you're interested in joining our friendly committed team and helping people with learning disabilities and/or autism to live more independently, then we’d love to hear from you. If there’s nothing suitable for you but you know of someone else who might be interested, please do spread the word and encourage them to get in touch.

We're currently recruiting for bank staff - tutors and classroom assistants.