In February 2016 The Edith M Ellis 1985 Charitable Trust awarded a grant to Our Own Future for their Card Beds for the Homeless project. Along with the communications and meetings with different organisations to plan workshops, this grant enabled them to do the following:

• Three presentations during July with The Challenge’s programme of National Citizen Service to promote and engage participants in the card beds project that were also to give assistance to participants with projects that they will be leading to offer something to the community. This includes time needed to prepare and to source card to use at the events.
• A presentation and workshop for All Nations church where a team of around 20 people helped to make card beds to be given to homeless people in Wolverhampton. This included time needed to source card and prepare templates for the volunteers to use.
• Being present at a soup kitchen to distribute the beds to homeless people which was successful as the beds that were made at All Nations were all given out.
• A meeting at the University of Birmingham to organise a series of workshops in December 2016 over three days to engage students to make further card beds to be distributed in Birmingham.
• Communications with companies and charities that would lead to large numbers of beds being made and distributed to refugees in camps across Europe.

Their work is ongoing and Our Own Future continues to make a difference to people who find it difficult to support themselves.

The Edith M Ellis 1985 Charitable Trust is pleased to support the work of Our Own Future.  Further information on their valuable work can be found at http://www.ourownfuture.org