Christmas Meal for Mental Health

After receiving donations of over £3,000 from generous funders and organisations across Cheshire, Chapter Mental Health hosted a free festive meal for its service users over the holiday season. The mental health charity organised the event for 45 of its service users on Wednesday December 22nd to support their wellbeing at what can be a very difficult time of year. The meal, which took place at the Mill Hotel in Chester, included a three-course dinner with gift bags and Christmas cards for every attendee. Clare Ashworth, Strategic Lead for Funding at Chapter, commented: “Last year, Christmas was difficult for our service users living with mental ill-health as the lockdown meant many of them were isolated from their support networks.” “Chapter wanted to make up for that this year by bringing our service users together for a fabulous festive event. The event was a huge success, giving them the opportunity to make new friends, boost their wellbeing and share in the joy of the holiday season.” The event was crowdfunded through Cheshire West Crowd, a new project in which Cheshire West and Chester Council used the platform Spacehive to provide opportunities for community initiatives to access funding. Altogether, £3,273 was raised from individuals, community organisations and funders to ensure the Christmas meal event could take place. This included generous donations from Cheshire West and Cheshire Council, Williams Family Foundation, Blakemore Foundation, and Rotary Club of Chester. Clare Ashworth continued: “We are very thankful to all the funders and organisations who donated to our crowdfunding campaign and helped to make this event a reality.” One service user who attended said the Christmas event was “really nice” and they were “incredibly grateful for everything Chapter have done”. Chapter Mental Health provides one-to-one support, listening services, workshops and group activities for individuals and workplaces in Chester and surrounding areas.

A huge thank you to everyone who has pledged to our Christmas Meal for metal health project - we have reached our target! If you would still like to support our campaign, it will continue until the 29th November 2021. Any funding over our target will be used to support people living with mental ill-health in West Cheshire through one-to-one support and group activities.