THE founders and manager of Teardrops have described their "heartbreak" after its closure and looked back on the eight years which saw the charity serve the most vulnerable in our community.
Teardrops Supporting the Homeless was formed in 2016 by Shauni Ward and Denise Kelly to support those who were rough sleeping on the streets of St Helens.
During the pandemic, communities reached out to help and support those most vulnerable and disadvantaged in their community.
Alongside other charities and services, Teardrops recognised the need to support those struggling, and in 2020, Tchanged its name to Teardrops Supporting Your Community.
It provided wrap-around support with welfare and benefits advice, supporting people from the streets into a home, several schools with food pantries, workshops for young people, weekly multi-agency drop-ins, and a night service.
As a way to be more sustainable, in September 2023, using legacy money left to the charity, Teardrops founded Mellor and Black Enchanted Tea Rooms and an upcycling furniture business called Made Up inside the downstairs of the former Ena Shaw building.
The intention was funds garnered from these businesses would go back into Teardrops.
However, due to rising costs and the cost-of-living crisis, the charity closed the two businesses on Saturday, June 1.
An online fundraiser racked in more than £7,000 to try and save the charity, but the funds were not enough.
On Wednesday, June 26, the charity announced its closure.
Speaking to the Star co-founders Shauni Ward and Denise Kelly and manager Nick Dyer discussed the end of the charity and what they hope for other charities in the future.
Shauni said: “To have to close the charity is heartbreaking but when we started this eight years ago we didn’t mean for it to become this big.
“But it started helping the homeless and we realised the community needed help and the need grew so we changed and helped all kinds of people with food, benefits, housing, anything and it just became so much.
“I’m really proud of everything we’ve done, it hasn’t sunk in yet that it's over but it wasn’t me or Denise or Nick that did this; Teardrops is a family, we did it all together, everyone added something that made Teardrops what it was.”
Nick said: “I’ll miss that the most, the rewarding sense we got from helping people in different ways.
“Ultimately there is a limited amount of money available for charities, the need for charities has grown and more charities have launched to help communities and we are all going after the same funding, in a cost-of-living crisis when people can understandably give less, but the need is more.”
Denise added: “It’s been devastating to be honest. I’ve lost a lot of weight since all of this because it’s so heartbreaking thinking of all the people who need our service but we kept it going as long as we could.
“It’s also been very hard that we couldn’t pay the staff, but as it goes into liquidation people will be given information on how to access codes from the government to retrieve their pay.
“We’ve seen data to say in the cost-of-living crisis more charities are closing and what we’d love to do is urge people to support charities in whatever way you can.”
Shauni added: “That’s not just giving money or time either, you can share a post and help share the impact charities can have and it all goes to help.”
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