With figures showing that 1.9 million – 16% – of pensioners are living in relative poverty in the UK (¹) – our charity has taken action and launched its 2024 Winter Appeal. The Appeal aims to support older people this winter, by paying for grants for essentials such as winter clothing and bedding for warmth, heating costs, food, boiler maintenance and other vital home repairs.
The 2024 Winter Appeal is vital to Friends of the Elderly, as it raises essential funds for the our Grants Service, a service which is totally focused on helping and supporting older people living throughout England and Wales who are State Pension age and living on low incomes. The grants do not pay for luxuries or extravagant items, they pay for essentials – every day necessities – that they cannot otherwise afford.
“Our Winter Appeal aims is to raise as much money as possible to help ease and improve some of the many challenges older people will be facing this winter,” said Mark Wilson, our Interim co-Chief Executive. “Many of the older people we help and support through the Winter Appeal have reached the end of their tether and are literally at crisis point, having nowhere else, or left, to turn.”
The grants have already helped, Iris*. “I am 73 and live on my own. I lost my Husband recently and things have proved to be a bit tough since then. I am massively struggling and I don’t know where to go for help,” said Iris.
“My Husband and I worked all our lives; I was a Nurse. Ten years ago, my Husband was taken ill with a heart condition and I became his full-time Carer. He was a tall man, well over 6ft, but because of his heart condition he couldn’t do much physically, he had to lie down a lot and developed worse problems, including leg ulcers that wouldn’t heal properly.
“I looked after him and we made the best of what we could, then he developed Cancer and he died three years later. It’s very sad because you think, this is where he wanted to live and retire to, to enjoy life.
“I also looked after my Mum full-time until she died. It’s utter devotion, caring for someone like that. You are mentally and physically exhausted. You never really sleep. In the end, my Mum and Husband were like bags of bones. You just want them to have some peace.
“Since losing my Husband, I still have to run everything on just my pension. The oil tank runs my heating and hot water. I put away £5 per week for oil, that helps, but it’s still not enough. I can only thank God for what Friends of the Elderly did for me. They were amazing, they gave me £400 for heating oil. Without that I’d be stuffed.
“I barely have the lights on at all to keep my costs down. In the evening when it gets dark, I only have one light on in one room and I light a candle in the kitchen. I have the heating on for half an hour per day which is enough to heat some water and take the edge off the cold in the house. I have a fire, but the logs and kindling all cost money too.
“I cope because I don’t have a choice. Fortunately, I’m fit and well for my age, but the stress of this has brought on high blood pressure. I keep a clean home and I cook for myself, I can batch cook and make food last, but the fact is, if you can’t afford to buy decent food you end up eating a pretty rotten diet.
“It’s very stressful. At times I just don’t know where to turn. I don’t want to borrow, that’s when things start to go wrong. I’ve got no choice; I’ve got to put up with this. I sometimes think, what is the point in carrying on?
“It’s a real situation, where you really do have to choose whether to eat or heat your home.”
Friends of the Elderly provided Iris with a grant of £400 to help pay for heating oil. “Helping older people like Iris is at the heart of our 2024 Winter Appeal. Helping older people to keep warm, comfortable, healthy and safe is what it is all about. Our Winter Appeal is crucially important – it’s vital – as it allows us to help, support and make definitive, positive and actual differences to many older people’s daily lives throughout the cold, damp winter months,” added Mark.
Iris continued: “I don’t know what I would have done without Friends of the Elderly, there was no one I could turn to for help. I am eternally grateful.”
“At Friends of the Elderly, we totally understand and appreciate just how tough and challenging times are for everyone at the moment, so we are extremely grateful for any donation, no matter how small, that people are able and willing to give.
“All donations to our 2024 Winter Appeal will go directly to helping older people in need throughout England and Wales like Iris,” Mark concluded.