For 53 days, we tracked and watched the  Entrepreneur Ship in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge move through the Atlantic Ocean powered by the rowing skills of Guy Rigby and David Murray. They now hold the world record for the oldest pair to row any ocean. During the journey, the team entertained us with videos of near misses with tankers, strange sea birds and the horrendous amount of plastic pollution they encountered, creating problems for future generations. 

When asked to vote for their nominated charity, 53% of the staff at Chestertons, the London-based real estate agents, voted to support a charity focused on tackling ocean pollution. As a result, Salah Mussa, Chairman of the Chestertons Foundation, organised a substantial donation to the Ocean Generation charity.

Designed to connect participants to ocean threats, Ocean Generation’s Ocean Academy provides the education and tools for young people to protect the ocean. From the generous bequest from Chestertons Foundation to Ocean Generation, they will educate 40,000 young people on the importance of our oceans and what can be done to safeguard them. Hopefully, the next generation of Atlantic rowers will see the difference. Guy and David are raising money for UnLtd, the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs. You can donate to the Entrepreneur Ship via crowdfunder.co.uk.

Chestertons and St Mungo’s are celebrating three years of the Chestertons Foundation funded outreach service First Response. The programme currently has over 50 volunteers devoting their spare time to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping during the Covid-19 crisis, and the team has recruited over 260 volunteers since it began in 2018.

First Response works by recruiting and training volunteers to work alongside Streetlink – the national rough sleeping referral service – and St Mungo’s London outreach teams to find people who are sleeping rough. As one of the largest providers of outreach services in the country, St Mungo’s has supported over 4,000 people to isolate safely since the pandemic began.

The volunteers help these efforts by locating people or checking areas where members of the public say they have seen someone sleeping outside, and then letting St Mungo’s dedicated outreach teams know if they need to respond, or if that person cannot be found.

Typically, over 74% of these public referrals are not found, meaning that specialist outreach workers’ time is often spent checking empty sites. Thanks to the efforts of First Response volunteers filtering out these referrals, St Mungo’s specialist outreach workers are able to use their time more effectively, ensuring as many people as possible can be supported. In the past three years, First Response volunteers have dedicated over 5,500 hours to locating people sleeping rough across the capital – the equivalent of approximately 1,380 outreach team shifts.

Mathilde Dupouy, St Mungo’s First Response Coordinator, said: “First Response has made a huge difference over the last three years and wouldn’t have been possible without support from Chestertons and the Chestertons Foundation. Our fantastic First Response volunteers have spent hours searching the streets looking for vulnerable people sleeping rough across London to make sure they are supported. Their incredible contribution means that our outreach teams can dedicate more time to offering people routes out of homelessness and towards recovery, including helping them to access support services and emergency accommodation during the pandemic.”

Salah Mussa, Chairman of the Chestertons Foundation, said: “The Chestertons Foundation is delighted to support St Mungo’s innovative approach to reaching more people who are rough sleeping across London. We are incredibly proud and grateful to all the staff and volunteers that have put themselves on the frontline during the Covid-19 crisis to support people experiencing homelessness – selfless acts that have without doubt saved countless lives.”

The partnership between St Mungo’s and Chestertons played an integral role in the emergency response to the outbreak of Covid-19. Despite being restricted in what they have been able to do on the streets during the pandemic, volunteers switched from helping search for people sleeping rough, to supporting St Mungo’s staff in the emergency hotels, which were used to accommodate people who had been rough sleeping so they could safely isolate from the virus. Between 24 March and 4 December 2020, volunteers completed a total of 791 hours in our emergency hotels.

Rumbi, a Rapid Intervention Worker for Westminster Outreach Team, said: “I started working with First Response volunteers over a year ago and the volunteers really help me in my work… Instead of having to look for all the referrals, we delegate some to our First Responders who then provide us with the outcome for each referral they check. It’s a big deal for volunteers to give up their time, and I really commend them all.”

Dominic Olins, a First Response volunteer since 2019 who also helped clients in emergency hotel accommodation during Covid-19, said: “Volunteering with First Response is a great experience because you feel like you’re making a valuable contribution and your efforts have tangible results… As volunteers, we’re there to respond to a need and increase efficiency, so we must be able to go with the flow. If you are thinking about volunteering with First Response, I would say definitely do it!”

The First Response programme is currently operating in the London boroughs of Westminster and Tower Hamlets. If you would like to get involved and see opportunities available, please visit: https://www.mungos.org/get-involved/volunteer/current-volunteering-opportunities/

The Chestertons Foundation works with two of London’s largest homeless charities.