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Grants Spotlight: Hospitality Action

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This month, our Grant Spotlight is on Hospitality Action – the Hospitality Industry Benevolent Organisation. It offers assistance to all who work or have worked in the hospitality industry in UK who find themselves in crisis.

Sometimes all it takes is a small change in circumstances to tip the balance and turn a manageable situation into an unmanageable one. An extended illness, such as cancer, can lead to a drop in income or other circumstances, such as relationship breakdown, bereavement or redundancy, may cause someone to struggle.

Who does Hospitality Action help?

Hospitality Action supports people who are:

  • Suffering from life-altering illnesses

  • Experiencing poverty, bereavement and domestic violence

  • Retired from the industry who may be isolated.

The charity can consider financial assistance for those who are:

  • Currently working in hospitality

  • Have worked for one continuous year in the past five, or

  • Have worked seven years in the industry over their lifetime in total.

What kind of grants does Hospitality Action offer?

The charity can offer the following grants:

  • Essential needs: assistance towards the cost of an item for the wellbeing of an applicant

  • Crisis assistance for people of working age who have suffered a sudden loss of income

  • Top-up award to pensioners who have spent most of their working life in hospitality and are now on a very limited income

  • Winter fuel:to help people on a low income with the cost of heating their home.

Find out more about Hospitality Action

Mark Christie's story

A proud ex-serviceman, Mark was forced to give up work due to terminal lung disease. Mark and his wife Fiona spent over 10 years working in hospitality until they were both forced to leave work - Mark because of his poor health and Fiona because she was acting as his carer. Coping with his terminal diagnosis, Mark became increasingly immobile. On top of this, the couple faced serious financial difficulties.

Mark’s illness left the couple and their son devastated and desperate to visit their family in Scotland to say goodbye.

Mark said: “If I don’t receive this grant we will never travel anywhere as a family and we will never see our relatives together again as they live in Scotland.”

Upon hearing of their heart-breaking circumstances, Hospitality Action was able to provide a grant to make this final trip possible.

Mark says: “I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t contacted you. In my last year of life, I didn’t want to leave my wife in such distress. Thank you very much for all your help”.