In 2020, the Charity undertook a significant revision of its past processes for making grants to individuals. We determined that the Charity will work through partners and will use the majority of its funds to bring enduring benefit to residents of KT13 who are in need. Recognising, however, that there will always be a need for emergency short-term assistance, the Charity established partnerships with several local charities (link to Our partner organisations), including local schools, who have direct relationships with local residents. We provide annual grants to these organisations who in turn provide grants to those in need.
We are also developing partnerships with local charities on longer term projects.
In 2022 we established a grant to Citizens Advice Elmbridge (West) to enable them to develop an outreach base for Weybridge residents and to support those residents with especially complex needs.
Helping Weybridge households in fuel crisis
In October of 2022, as we became aware of the challenges faced by households in Fuel Crisis, Trustees of WLC decided that we would take action to find a way to meet the needs of Weybridge residents.
Our initial research revealed that the people most at risk of Fuel Crisis – being cut of from their electricity and/or gas supply – were households on prepayment meters who “self-disconnect” because they do not have the funds to top up their meters. We were also aware that there were many households in Weybridge who could afford to go without the Winter Energy Support grant of £400 from Government.
With this knowledge, we set about establishing a fundraising campaign locally and investigating how to access ‘fuel vouchers’ so that we could ensure any funds granted to households would be spent fully and only on gas and/or electricity supply. We found that we could source vouchers from Fuel Bank Foundation in exchange for funds donated by local residents, by entering into a Partnership agreement with Fuel Bank Foundation.
Very quickly after our initial contact with Fuel Bank Foundation we were discussing Fuel Bank Foundation actually fully funding the project in Weybridge. A key reason for this offer from Fuel Bank Foundation was the well-established relationships the WLC had forged with other local charities, including local schools. In effect, they liked the way we were working locally.
We are now in a position where Weybridge schools can directly refer eligible households to Fuel Bank Foundation and trigger a ‘voucher’ within 24 hours directly to the household via the prepayment meter top up system.
Our Partner Organisations
St James C. of E. Primary School
St Charles Borromeo Catholic Primary School & Nursery
Citizens Advice Elmbridge West
What We’ve Done So Far
We started our new approach in September 2020 and have a link Trustee who works with our partner charities.
All partner organisations have an annual delegated emergency fund, which they can use to provide for food, heating, school uniform, household goods and for sim cards and mobile data for people on benefits who need to fill in online forms for benefit claims.
In addition, the Charity supported local primary schools with funds for computers during the Covid pandemic and supported The Cancer Club https://thecancerclub.co.uk/
The Charity has also welcomed Weybridge Men’s Shed https://weybridgeshed.org/ to the Churchfield site and has invested in the maintenance and upgrading of the Churchfield allotments, which the Charity views as a community asset. In spring 2022 the Charity purchased a buggy and customised trailer to make Churchfields allotments accessible to residents of care homes and other mobility restricted Weybridge residents. The Charity is committed to opening up the Churchfields Allotments for broader community use in the coming year.
Know Someone Who Needs Help?
If you require assistance, or know someone in need, follow the links on this website to our partner charities and organisations (above) and make it known to them that you need support. We do not deal directly with individual requests ourselves.
If you are a charity working with residents of Weybridge and would like to find out if the Charity can assist you, please get in touch via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.