Doncaster Women's Aid make urgent appeal for help to stay open
The charity's funding ran out yesterday, meaning it only got enough money to last until the end of April.
Doncaster Women's Aid is appealing for urgent help from the community to raise the cash they need to stay open.
The charity's funding ran out yesterday, meaning it only got enough money to last until the end of April.
It gets more than 300 referals every month, and deals with around 4,000 victim enquiries a year.
It's now launched a crowdfunding page to try and raise £90,000.
Chief executive Jane Thompson-Brierly says they need to buy enough time to find a long-term solution: "The £90,000 that we're hoping to raise will give us at least six months where we can do some really sustainable fundraising.
"It's about being able to have the time and the capacity to do that fundraising. So that would buy us the time to be able to look at some reall sustainable funding."
Doncaster Women’s Aid has been supporting victims of domestic violence and abuse since 1976.
It operates an open door non-time limited service, and also assists Asian and Eastern European women with issues like asylum, immigration and forced marriages.
Local businesswoman Hannah Damary-Thompson helped launch the funding campaign and told Hallam that when she heard about the situation, she knew she had to help: "Domestic violence touches so many in our community.
"Not just women but men and children. £90,000 would make a difference to so many lives and in the grand scheme of things is not that much if everybody could pull together.
"I really couldn't ignore the fact that they needed some help.
"I would be surprised if not everybody in our community knows somebody who's been affected by this. It's important that not only do we save the charity, but we raise their profile and we educate people within our community."