Military charity street collection in Cambridge
by Stephen Hewitt | Published
A Cambridge Journal, Saturday 25 March 2017
Today in the centre of Cambridge men dressed in camouflage were collecting money in buckets for a military charity based in Kings Lynn called “The Bridge for Heroes”.
I saw two near the Grafton shopping centre and two near the Grand Arcade shopping mall.
One of them handed out a leaflet identifying the charity as “The Bridge for Heroes”, registered charity number 1138136 with contact address 52A South Clough Lane, Kings Lynn, PE30 1SE. The leaflet front page has the slogan “wounds are not always visible”. The leaflet defines the charity's beneficiaries as armed forces personnel and their families and veterans and their families. In the section “What are the needs?” the leaflet says “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a well documented issue for some current and past members of the Armed Forces”. The section then continues “There are many other associated difficulties and needs that we address” and lists “family”, “financial”, “housing/homelessness”, “social re-adjustment” and “loneliness”. Other services offered include amongst others “mental health issues”, “reminiscing and respite”, “building resilience” and “forces law”.
The website has a longer list than the leaflet, including for example “Assistance with compensation claims” and “Assistance with service records and medal applications”.
The annual report for year ending 24 May 2016 filed with the Charity Commission includes “All our charitable activities focus on beneficiaries' wellbeing in the areas of (but not exclusively) re-adjustment, respite, recuperation, anger issues, isolation, loneliness and the early identification of PTSD, assisting with immediate support.”
The leaflet says that General Lord Dannatt is a patron.