Watford Mencap

Watford Mencap pays tribute to its supporters at John Lewis, Watford

Posted on 22nd May 2009

Cllr Dorothy Thornhill, Mayor of Watford joined other Watford Mencap supporters at John Lewis in the Harlequin on Thursday 21 May to celebrate the people and organisations who support the work of the charity.

Watford Mencap has worked with people with learning disabilities in South West Herts for nearly 60 years. Whilst the charity is affiliated to Royal Mencap, it receives no funding from them and relies heavily on local authority funding, local corporate support and community donations.

The varied nature of Watford Mencap’s work has been brought to light thanks to Lesley Blee, a secondee from John Lewis who spent the last six months of 2008 interviewing and creating a record of the people and organisations who have supported the charity.

David Green, Operations Manager, Fashion and Personnel Manager at John Lewis Watford, warmly welcomed invited visitors to The Place to Eat at 4pm and spoke about some of the projects that John Lewis Watford had undertaken last year when Watford Mencap had been their Charity of the Year.

Jenny Young, mother of a child with a learning disability, spoke about the care her son receives at Watford Mencap Children’s Centre and what the respite means for her and the rest of the family.

Veronica Chamberlain, Watford Mencap’s Funding & Business Development Manager then launched the case studies which have been produced:

“We are incredibly grateful to John Lewis for Lesley’s secondment. Our small fundraising department would never have had the time to research and produce these case studies, but it is really important to us that people should understand what Watford Mencap does.’

To see a series of nine case studies reflecting the experiences of people with learning disabilities, support workers, carers and volunteers please follow this link.

Veronica continued, “We hope that these studies will inspire others to follow in the footsteps of those people and organisations who have been so generous. Without their support we could not continue to do our work”