As the number of young people living below the poverty line reaches its highest level in more than 20 years, the charity is working to positively impact 40,000 children’s lives and raise £1m to combat child poverty this year.
Now in its third year, Yorkshire Children’s Charity is a small, disruptive charity making huge differences to the lives of the children they help. Founded and run by mum of two Charlotte Farrington, the charity raised £4.6m in its first two years. This is an unprecedented achievement in its sector, but there’s still much work to be done, and Yorkshire Children’s Charity is continually striving to make things better for children and young people living at disadvantage in Yorkshire.
The charity is calling on people across UK to donate £25 to “light a star” for a child living in poverty. From their first Christmas present or school trip to a warm winter coat or new shoes for school, every star lit will make a huge difference to a child’s life this year. Each individual donation will help a child with a need that wouldn’t otherwise be met. Every donation will go straight to improving the life of a child, with 100% of all donations given directed straight to beneficiaries.
Every donation will go straight to improving the life of a child, with 100% of all donations given direct, straight to beneficiaries.
Yorkshire Children’s Charity is working to raise 40,000 stars in 2024 as part of a wider fundraising drive this year, which will culminate in the charity’s annual gala: “A Night Under the Stars.”
At the stunning Grantley Hall venue in Ripon, Yorkshire, the event will bring people together with exceptional food, drink and live entertainment for a dazzling evening with an important cause at its heart. At last year’s event, Yorkshire Children’s Charity was able to raise £850,000 for vulnerable young people in one evening alone.
By taking the pressure off young people and their families by relieving their immediate struggles, Yorkshire Children’s Charity’s long term goal is to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty endemic in the region and ensure all of its young people are giving equal opportunity to thrive; because all children, irrespective of their health, ability or financial circumstance, have the right to a fair, inclusive and happy life.
31% of children in Yorkshire live in povety.
People can Light a Star for the children at yorkshirechildrenscharity.org
Meet Charlotte, founder and CEO of Yorkshire Children’s Charity. We sat down with her to find out more about the charity’s work in its first three years.
How far has Yorkshire Children’s Charity come in the three years since you founded it?
The charity turned two on 1 January this year, so we’re still very young. We launched at the beginning of 2022 with £7k in the bank, but have raised more than £4.8m for Yorkshire’s children since then, with the goal of raising another £3m this year. We’ve come a long way in terms of discovering who we are as an organisation as well – what matters to us, how we want to operate – and that’s come to run through every decision we make as we move forwards.
What has been your most valued moment in the first three years?
There are so many different things that stand out for different reasons. Within a week of launching, we sold 1,000 tickets to our The Yorkshires. Commercial Real Estate Awards - this showed the confidence that the region had in us and gave us confidence in those early days. In the same vein, a supporter generously underwrote all of our applications until our first event 5months in so that we could get help to children from day one.
In 2022 we wrote to the Prince of Monaco to ask for his support and he gave us an unconditional ‘yes’ which resulted in us raising £850k in a single night at A Night Under the Stars, which was incredible.
We delivered our biggest campaign to date, supporting over 1,000 children with basic essentials (winter coats, shoes, bedding, etc) and Christmas presents in Winter 2022. The impact of this has been greater than we could have ever imagined - so many intangible benefits we couldn’t have predicted. And our Easter egg campaign went from giving eggs to 6,000 children in 2023, to getting eggs to more than 0,000 children in 2024.
How do relationships with businesses like Moda support the charity?
We are a tiny team, and we can’t do what we do without external support - Charlotte and I set the charity up, but it is not ‘our’ charity, it’s Yorkshire’s, and its only through our combined efforts that we will be able to make things better for children living at a disadvantage across the region. Yes, we need donations, yes, we need people and companies to support our events, yes, we need volunteers at our Schools Out events. But external resource is just as valuable to us. We wouldn’t have raised what we have raised to date or supported as many children as we have to date without the support of amazing businesses like Moda.
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