Successful Presidential appeal beats target
14/04/10
Steve Benson, last year's CIH President, closed his presidential charity appeal at the end of the year. Steve set an objective to raise £40,000 during his presidential year for the Crisis Changing Lives project.
'This is a fantastic charity, which provides grants to homeless people, or people in vulnerable housing circumstances, to help get them back into employment, or often, into employment for the first time.'
He beat his target and raised £41,603 and the photograph shows him presenting the cheque to Leslie Morphy, Chief Executive of Crisis and Caroline Spelman, shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government at an award event to celebrate the achievements of people who had benefited from Changing Lives grants.
Steve and a team of supporters organised a wide range of activities during the year, including three golf days and two charity balls. He also laid down a challenge to all of the CIH English regions and the three National Business Units in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. 'I'm really grateful to all of my friends and colleagues who helped me during the year and I'd like to say a special thank you to everyone on the South East committee, and to Jeremy Adams and all of his colleagues at Adams Integra, for all of their fantastic support over the year.
'It was a great honour for me to be President of the Chartered Institute of Housing and a privilege to lead an appeal that is helping homeless people realise their vocational ambitions and return to work. Homeless people face a huge range of difficulties, but if they can be helped either back into employment, or sometimes into employment for the first time, they can become independent and self supporting again.'