Father and son duo David and Richard are the first to arrive at our meet and greet point at 7:30am – shortly followed by last-minute stand-in Toby and our very own Brigitte.

They were part of 48 runners who took place in the Manchester half-marathon and Manchester 10k in aid of our charity – raising over £12,000 between our JustGiving page and other platforms.

We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who took part across both races, as well as the 500+ donors who contributed to our runners’ targets. After the difficult task of pulling everything together during Covid-19 last year, we were overwhelmed by the response from our supporters for this year’s races!

Ancoats Refurbishment

Work is well under way on our Ancoats Community Shop and Food Club refurbishment, which will be relaunching on Monday 6th June. Here’s a sneak peek from this morning, and thanks to the teams from BUPA, Manchester Children’s Hospital and Selfridges, who are all on site today to give us a hand.

While these works are taking place, there is a pop-up Food Club in our health and wellbeing suite, and our two Salford hubs are open as usual for furniture and clothing. Please note that all three hubs will be closed for the Platinum Jubilee bank holiday (2nd & 3rd June). If you have any queries about our shop refurb or opening times, please call 0161 228 7331 or email information@mustardtree.org.uk.

A well-targeted package

Some green shoots for the cost of living crisis, as the Government announced on Friday that every household in the UK is to get an energy bill discount of £400 this October, as part of a package of new measures to tackle soaring prices. The poorest households will also receiving a payment of £650 to help with the cost of living.

The Resolution Foundation – an independent think-tank focused on improving the living standards of those on low-to-middle incomes – has described the response as a ‘well-targeted package’ of energy bill support.

“Last week’s response was a major package of support for household living costs, nearly doubling the help that had been announced this Spring. Alongside its scale, the defining feature of the support announced is that it is well targeted – filling the big gap left by the Chancellor’s previous announcements’ failure to provide sufficient support for those on lower incomes who are worst affected by surging energy bills.

The winter ahead will be a long way from easy for poorer households, but it will be a lot less grim as a result of yesterday’s package.”

– The Resolution Foundation

The announcement is also welcome news for Mustard Tree, as we try to stabalise the instances of 121 emergency support around finances and housing – a figure which has almost doubled since the start of lockdown.

Thank you as always to everyone who is helping us navigate through this very difficult period – we really couldn’t do it without your support.

GMPA Poverty Monitor 2022

Despite the October uplift, inequalities and poverty persist across Greater Manchester – newly illustrated by Greater Manchester Poverty Action’s Poverty Monitor for 2022.

Key findings for the whole of Greater Manchester include:

• Around 145,000 children are living in poverty, representing one in four children
• The number of foodbanks and other providers supporting people on low incomes to meet basic food needs has doubled in 5 years
• 181,588 households are experiencing fuel poverty, representing 15% of all households
• 195,000 workers earn less than the Real Living Wage of £9.90 an hour

The Poverty Monitor reveals the scale of poverty across Greater Manchester and covers ten themes: Child poverty, debt, deprivation, educational attainment, fuel and food insecurity, health, homelessness, housing, social security and the labour market.

Click here to view the GMPA Poverty Monitor 2022.

Charity of the Year Partners

We want to give a special shout-out to all our past, current and new partners, who choose Mustard Tree as their work’s ‘charity of the year’. This could mean committing to fundraising, volunteering, collections and/or providing skills, training and work placements for our Freedom trainees.

We’re always on the lookout to strike up new partnerships with those who are interested in our work and share our values. If you would like to get involved, please give us a call on 0161 228 7331 or email information@mustardtree.org.uk.

Can you help us combat poverty and prevent homelessness?

If you enjoy reading our newsletter and want to support our work, the best way you can do this is by joining the Real 10k and setting up a regular gift to help keep our services running. We have an aim to recruit 10,000 donors – each giving £5 a month – to help secure our charity for years to come – and create lasting change across Manchester and Salford.

Please join us in this mission by clicking the button below.

Join the Real 10k

To our partners who are already supporting us with a monthly donation, please share this newsletter with friends, family members and colleagues – and thank you so much for all your ongoing support. Your kind donations are vital for us to continue our work and much appreciated by us all.