People For People - Stevenage

10/01/2025

09/01/2025

There are some excellent things on our other site access through ‘more’ button at top of page. Lady called Claire for example is doing a flat clearance.. white goods etc. have a look 😊

08/01/2025

Toni has truly shown herself to be a fantastic member of our community. And I told her the same, I’m just the post it up guy.. it’s the patrons on here that will continue to support this man with the vouchers they pay for.
BE A PATRON !

07/01/2025

From inbox.

I'm not sure if you can get a message out. Young lad has fled DV, council are refusing to help. He is Autistic and currently street homeless, we are desperately looking for a room/cheap flat that he can take his assistance dog with him. He is working but his income is extremely low, need the room to be £110 per week max in order for him to survive due to his budget.

He has been homeless all over christmas.
EDIT. Man has now been housed after a call to this lady from the council. Really pleased and thank you all 🙏🏻💙

07/01/2025

So this time I need some help!
My beloved camper has just had the worst possible diagnosis of a head gasket failure. I’m determined to get it fixed it’s part of our family now this wonderful old girl .. can someone recommend me a really good garage that can help me out?
Thank you

Kenny 🙏🏻

07/01/2025

If you’re a podcast fan I can’t recommend this enough. I’ve recently finished a 23 part study of Hi**er. Germany in the 1930s, was a place of racial hatred on a particular religion, fuelled by the ever widening gap of wealth between rich people getting richer, and poor people falling even worse into poverty. Lazy greedy unreachable politicians of all sides, allowed a vacuum of people feeling unrepresented, and without hope, to start warring on ‘enemies’ they could reach and blame. Facts became unimportant.
Suddenly the super rich, cutting aid and services and blatantly stealing money, were not the problem, it was the local shopkeeper whose prices had gone up, the ones that dressed differently were accused of trying to steal the culture of Germany, and even to replace them. And given this monumental lack of hope and easy scapegoats… fascism crept in and ultimately led to the country’s destruction.
Couldn’t happen here though could it?

06/01/2025

It’s tonight and I hear it’s wonderful and healing 😊🙏🏻❤️ share please

05/01/2025

A family in our town has had an unbelievably shocking time of it. So I’m wondering if anyone can help. The prime thing they need is a small freezer, even an under the counter one. Do you have one? Can you help? Please share this so we can maximise the people that see this 🙏🏻❤️😊

04/01/2025

What a community you are. We can’t replace what’s been lost for this family, but we can show them that they’re one of us, and as such.. we care. I love you lot so much. You’re all amazing. ❤️🙏🏻💙.

04/01/2025

WE DID IT ! £510 in to our £500 target for the mattress for the family in need. Let’s keep going I’ll update this as we go. PayPal at [email protected] ❤️🙏🏻
Target achieved and money sent. Thank you all so much! 🙏🏻❤️😊

04/01/2025

STATUS UPDATE FOR LADY IN PREVIOUS ONE.

Lots of people suggesting a go fund me. I don’t know how to do that so do this. Donate to the PFP PAYPAL and I’ll see every penny gets to the family. Use this email.
[email protected]
Thank you

04/01/2025

From inbox. Sometimes there isn’t a way of softening real life situations. Apologies for the very raw story, but someone needs its community’s help.

Hello team. I need some support to help my family. We lost our wonderful Father, a Granddad to 8, after a short unexpected illness on the 2nd and I need to replace their King Size mattress. He took ill in the morning with what seemed to be a sickness bug but by 1.30pm he'd suffered heart failure and didn't recover. He was only 58 and very much loved. As you can imagine it's been a horrendous shock. Mum is currently sleeping in my bed as she can't get the smell out of her head. We've tried to clean and cleanse her room but it's clear that the mattress needs to be replaced after he died there on her side of the bed, a massively traumatic incident. You may not be able to help but I though it worth an ask. Thank you for everything you do, it really is wonderful.

EDIT: I’ve added another status about this. You can contribute to this by paying into the PFP PayPal account I’ll make sure every penny goes to the family. 🙏🏻😊❤️use email [email protected]
We will sort this!

03/01/2025

Im a bit blown away by all the kindness sent my way this week.. from ( not very) mysterious bags of goodies dropped on my doorstep, to so many messages.. Spare houses, spare cars, spare heaters, spare blankets, spare ribs probably somewhere in there too… what a blessed man I am.
The update is good. I feel tons better today, the boiler part is with the engineer and he’s coming tomorrow, and my mechanic Magic Steve is coming Tuesday to have a pop at the van. Everything crossed please. Tomorrow night ( all going well) I fancy a luxury deep bubble bath, rubber ducks, some candles, an audiobook, box of ferrerer Roche, and ruminate that all these hopefully temporary setbacks are designed to show us something. That will be .. what a lot of lovely people I have in my life. That’s you btw. GRATEFUL 🙏🏻❤️😊💙

02/01/2025

Ok so I’m still in bloody bed with this horrendous cold thing that’s doing the rounds. I sent a patrons update on New Year’s Eve.. what else to do laid up with a tub of Vix and a lemsip. Don’t answer that.
So if you’re not a patron ( why not) you won’t be aware that I add in some emails or texts sent to me in order to make sure they know of the impact they have with their donation each month. They are always anonymous, I sometimes change the s*x of the kids and never give real names, but the rest.. is absolutely the real story of how people’s lives are affected by these 500 people in this town who have stood up to be counted in their community. This month I had no stories as my notes ( please imagine a leather bound book with a ribbon and a quill .. instead of the back of envelopes and recipes they actually are ) were at work. And I’m finding it hard at the moment to find the remote in the bed covers so a car journey is out of my current remit I’m afraid.
Anyway.
I remembered this morning that a patron I asked to replay a little history we cooked up for someone in need had sent me this for my update. What it doesn’t mention is that I gave her the wrong voucher so we needed a second rendezvous, and that we did a bit more after. I love that she’s written it in a kind of third person narrative, which I’m too knackered to interfere with and I happen to think is rather wonderful. But sometimes non patrons who don’t get the nitty and indeed the gritty side of a community in action… it can go like this. Here’s patron T in her own words. I love it thank you.

‘Sorry, only just remembered this! Hope it’s not too late and hope it’s not too boring 🤣🤦🏼‍♀️ feel free to chop and change it x

We thought you might like to know a nice story with a happy ending that Kenny and a patron worked on together recently. One of our fabulous patrons saw a post from a woman on a Stevenage page, asking if anyone knew of any jobs going. The woman noted that she needed a cash in hand or paid weekly job, and the patron suspected this meant she needed some money quickly.

After a few private messages back and forth between the patron and the woman we eventually got the whole story - the Stevenage woman, a mum with four kids, was usually employed but was currently out of work and desperate to find a job before Christmas. She had contacted lots of workplaces asking if they had availability, but as a single mum her work had to fit around her children and her caring responsibilities for her elderly Nana with dementia. Add to the mix that one of her children was autistic and it was quickly obvious that she needed a little help to get through a temporary crisis. The woman confided in the patron that she had no money, and no food, for another two weeks and didn’t know how she was going to feed her children. She was embarrassed to accept help, she had never done so before, but she was desperate.

A quick call to Kenny and the wheels were in motion. The patron and Kenny had a clandestine meeting in Stevenage town centre (!) to hand over an Aldi voucher to get her over the next couple of weeks. The patron delivered the voucher to the mum’s home along with some cash to enable her to get some food and essentials for her family that day and a couple of toys for her autistic son. The mum was completely overwhelmed, gave the patron a massive tearful hug and asked her to pass on her thanks to everybody involved. She was initially very reluctant to take the voucher or cash, but the patron explained how many people out there wanted to help and that maybe one day she would be in a position where she could do the same thing for somebody else. The patron left with a warm feeling in her heart and the mum was left with money to shop for her family, knowing she was not alone. The cherry on the top was that the next day the mum contacted the patron to say she had been offered a job that she could do around her other caring responsibilities and would bring in money before Christmas. Boom!

Without People for People there would be no Aldi voucher to get this mum through a crisis, and without our amazing patrons there would be no People for People. So, please know what a fabulous job we are all doing for our community and, if you see something that makes you think someone needs help, reach out, get involved. Reaching out and helping others really does warm the cockles.

I’ll end on a message the mum sent the patron “I can't thank you enough for what you have done for me and my children. Please if there is ever anything I can do to help you or anyone else please let me know. I'm not always in this bad position that I am in currently”.

So next time you get some idiot questioning why we are giving “handouts”, why foodbanks are unnecessary and that people “just need to go and get a job”, perhaps you could tell them about this mum, and how the local community stepped up to ensure that she and her family got some immediate support and kindness when they most needed it.’

🙏🏻😊❤️

01/01/2025

There are so many people to thank this year. So I’m not gonna catch all
of you I know this. However, as we go in to our tenth year of PFP, I thought I’d have a go at mentioning a few.
Firstly the patrons. You are this page. Also I’d like to thank Josh Paternoster, Brian Stacey, Justin Brooke, Hayley and all at Nirva, Hayley Sherwood for believing in me and having a vision of what we can achieve, Micky Notschild at Own Homes, Mark Feeley at David Barney, Robert Clark, Mary Sabine, Stacey at the Lister, Daniel Barnes and his brilliant Foodshed, Karen Thorman and her never say die attitude to youth care and kindness, all the schools and pupils and parents and teachers that smashed the reverse advent this year and fed so many people. Sarah Todd and Westgate Tina and Frances, Kate for giving me the peace of mind in my life to stay focused and able to do this job, all my team at Kenny Arnold Hairdressing for regularly having to stop work and attend to a food voucher situation, and never complain about it, ..
BUT . My heroes of the year in this vastly crowded arena of goodness in this town has to be Darren Notschild and Rhys Morosco at Nationserv, who continually say yes to me and not ‘maybe’, ask how it could be done and not why it can’t be done, who have set up their own idea of a building supplies hub for people, and have generally been an amazing force for good through 2024. Well done lads, you and the lovely Laura Hazelton make my work here a lot lot easier and happier. Thank you 🙏🏻❤️😊

To the many I haven’t mentioned, thank you just as much. A thriving community is one that connects to each other, never judges, and just gives what they can. What a town. You are all by very nature , PEOPLE FOR PEOPLE 😊🙏🏻❤️

31/12/2024

Patrons you have your update bang on time today! I’ve just sent it, it’s a bit patchy and not like a normal one as I had a really delayed keyboard for some reason and I’m possibly out of my head on Beechams and strepsils. I also didnt have my notes ! But it’s a story of a man, feeling a bit cursed, and then realising just how lucky he is. 500 patrons for starters. Dear friends happy new year and all the love to you! Let me know you got it ok 🙏🏻❤️😊

25/12/2024

A very happy Xmas to this wonderful community of ours .. and a special mention for the patrons of this page that allow me to help so many people here in our town. Without you.. I’m just a bloke shouting!
Be a patron in 2025. They’ll tell you the joy it brings! Happy Christmas to you all.
Inbox open all day today and tomorrow if you’re in need! We never close ! 😊
Kenny ❤️🙏🏻😊