Social Things

Do you know somewhere that helps?

You don't have to run it. You don't have to be a charity. If you know a food bank, a warm space, a place that gives out coats — tell us, and we'll check it and put it on the map for the next person.

This is the bit only you know. We checked — no register in Britain publishes opening times. Not ALISS, not Give Food, not the Charity Commission. The only people who know are the people who have been.
Someone standing outside a locked door in the rain is the thing this whole site exists to prevent.

Roughly is fine. “Weekday mornings” is more use than nothing. Leave it blank if you genuinely don't know — we'll say we don't know, rather than guess.

Plenty of places — baby banks, clothing banks, some food banks — will only see you if an agency, a health visitor or Citizens Advice sends you. If you don't know, say so. We'd rather print nothing than tell somebody to walk in and have them turned away at the door.

Only if they limit it — by age, by area, by circumstance. Leave it blank if there are no limits you know of, and blank if you're not sure. Guessing a limit that isn't real turns people away who could have been helped.

Only if they have said so somewhere we can link to — their own website, or their own post. Paste that page's address here. If they haven't said it, leave this blank: we'll list them anyway, and people can still ask. Sending volunteers to a place that never asked for them costs the charity a reply they don't have time to write.

Only if you know it's right. A wrong number is worse than none — the person rings it, gets nothing, and thinks they've been turned away.

Especially: does someone need a referral or a voucher to get in? Turning up without one is the commonest way a journey gets wasted.

A few more things, if you happen to know them

We check it against the real register. Most good help — churches, mutual aid, volunteer groups — isn't a registered charity at all, so leaving this blank means nothing at all.

Only so a volunteer can ask you a question if something isn't clear. It is never shown on the site, and the public pages don't even load it from the database.

A volunteer checks everything before it goes on the site. Someone in trouble is going to act on this, so nothing gets published on trust alone.