SARAH, Duchess of York, in the first project to launch her new international charity Sarah’s Trust, has mobilised an ongoing response to benefit tens of thousands of NHS, care home and hospice staff.

The support is focused on aiding frontline workers in the coronavirus pandemic by connecting suppliers of both essential and luxury goods to hospitals, care communities and hospices at the forefront of managing the UK’s response.

To date, more than 80 locations have been reached with more than 150,000 individual deliveries. Parcels have included meals and snacks, fresh fruit and hygiene items including masks, scrubs, and toiletries. Deliveries include 49,020 surgical items, 33,110 food parcels and snacks, 17,185 toiletries and 15,100 meals.

Sarah’s Trust is a new global charity dedicated to acting as a bridge between individuals and organisations whose social responsibility and financial ability enables them to give philanthropically and charities who can show that their donations will be directed exactly where they are needed most, ensuring impactful and long lasting change in vulnerable communities.

As well as working to help health workers in the UK, Sarah’s Trust has also been providing lifesaving medication, food supplies and washing facilities in rural areas of Ghana.

Working in partnership with the charity Humanitas, Sarah's Trust responded to an urgent appeal to support an orphanage which homes 100 children by providing water tanks for handwashing, plus food and medical supplies during the country’s strict coronavirus lockdown.

Sarah's Trust also provided lifesaving support to the community of Ayensuako, supporting an education programme for over 250 children. The trust was able to provide all these students and their families with food, medical and sanitary supplies.

In the UK, the trust has been working with the organisation Under One Sky and NOAH Enterprise to deliver 500 ‘kipbags’ including sleeping bags and toiletries to homeless people sleeping rough in London and Luton. The deliveries have included not only emergency food and basic essentials like toothpaste and sanitary pads to the homeless, left without donations from passers by in the coronavirus lockdown.

For the NHS drive, the trust has utilised an extensive network of contacts in both the commercial and medical sectors to identify and approach potential donors.

The organisation could decide where they would like their care package items to be donated, or Sarah’s Trust made a recommendation if preferred. Once a recipient was established a safe delivery, abiding by all necessary social distancing measures outlined by the UK Government, was facilitated.

As well as connecting donors with health organisations, the Duchess and her daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie have personally funded and donated hundreds of items.

The effort has extended to 12 hospitals in London including Hammersmith, King’s College, Hillingdon Uxbridge, Evelina Children’s, St Mary’s Paddington, Kings Cross, Queen Mary’s Roehampton, St George’s Tooting, Royal Marsden as well as local GPs and NHS Hospital Trusts’ community centres. Nationwide support has been directed to Scotland – Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh Children’s Hospital, primary schools in Kemnay - and support has been given to Morrington Hospital in Swansea. Care packages and donations have gone to The Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, York Hospital, St James’s Hospital, Leeds, Broughton House in Manchester, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Southampton Paediatric ICU, Stoke Mandeville and MacIntyre care homes in Milton Keynes and St Albans.

Sarah, Duchess of York said: ‘I am incredibly excited to be bringing all of my charitable causes under one roof with Sarah’s Trust. It’s something I have wanted to do for a long time.

‘We will focus on a whole range of causes, all across the world, but at this terrible time it’s right that our first projects should be to help to contend with the impact of coronavirus both at home and abroad.

‘It has been humbling to be able to see just a little bit of the incredible work being done by our NHS and other health workers and I’m proud that, working with my daughters and new colleagues at Sarah’s Trust, we’ve been able to make life a little easier for some of them.

‘I’m also pleased that we’ve been able to support vulnerable children in Ghana, building on the sort of charity work I’ve been involved in for many years now.’

For over 30 years, Sarah, Duchess of York has been committed to children’s and wellness causes with a focus on education. The Duchess has travelled the globe to witness the projects first hand and has personally raised significant donations for causes that share her passion for change.

She founded Children in Crisis in 1993 to provide education to forgotten children around the world and the charity has educated over 1.4 million children, and was a founder patron of Street Child when the two charities merged. She is stepping down from her role at Street Child now the charities have successfully integrated and Sarah’s Trust is being launched, but the trust will continue to support Street Child’s work, ensuring the link continues.

Other charities whose work the Duchess champions and will be supported by Sarah’s Trust include the Teenage Cancer Trust, Teen Cancer America, Children’s Air Ambulance, the British Heart Foundation, Julia’s House and Key to Freedom, a business structure initiative to support vulnerable young women.

Sarah Wade, CEO of Sarah’s Trust, said: ‘We are very excited to be launching this new charitable initiative. The Duchess’s passion for these causes and people is cemented at the very core of Sarah’s Trust. Her energy and charitable heart will enable Sarah’s Trust to provide vital support to the world’s most forgotten, and to broaden her support to more charities working in the field.’

Mikkel Juel Iversen, founder of Under One Sky, said: ‘Under One Sky is incredibly grateful to Sarah’s Trust for the support they have shown our homeless friends stranded in London during the lockdown. The kipbags including sleeping bags and mats are filling a vital and imminent need on our streets.’

More information on Sarah’s Trust can be found at www.sarahstrust.com, or on Instagram @sarahs_trust_ and Twitter @sarahstrust