The RAF Marham Flyers Running Club hosted its annual New Year’s Eve 10k and saw a record turnout of 219 runners. Held in aid of the RAF Benevolent Fund, donations from fundraisers taking part totalled more than £3,400.
Although there was a lot of surface water on the airfield following the previous day’s record rainfall, the damp, windy conditions did nothing to put off people from taking part to help support the RAF’s leading welfare charity.
Read moreWhen 95-year-old Gwladys Anderson’s boiler broke down just before Christmas 2016, festivities at the old stone house in Crail, Fife, were all but over.
Gwladys did not want to leave the home she has lived in for 53 years, but with no heating and hot water, she told her Christmas guests to stay away. Gwladys’s daughter, Carolyn, describes how the RAF Benevolent Fund came to the rescue.
It was Christmas Eve when mum’s 10-year-old boiler decided to pack up completely. It had been playing up for a while and we’d limped on with it but this time we knew it was the end.
Read moreFormer RAF telecoms operator Ian Park says works to adapt his home and ensure he can live on one floor have ‘changed his life’.
The RAF Benevolent Fund stepped in to meet the shortfall in local authority funding needed to adapt Ian’s home in Sudbury and enable him to continue living there with his wife and teenaged son.
Read moreNew services to support the emotional wellbeing and mental health of RAF personnel are being launched this year by the RAF Benevolent Fund.
The RAF’s leading welfare charity is expanding its partnership with Anxiety UK to cover serving RAF men and women as well as those who have left the service. This includes both regulars and reservists, as well as their partners.
Those struggling with anxiety or depression will have access to an Anxiety UK helpline for emotional support, self-help material and subsidised membership.
Read moreThe Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund has awarded a grant of £80,000 in September 2017 toward SSAFA’s Casework service and other services that alleviate need, suffering and distress.
Casework sits at the heart of SSAFA’s work and provides personalised, holistic support to those currently serving, reserves, ex-service men and women, and their families. In recent years their Casework service has seen increasing numbers of working age beneficiaries requiring help. These beneficiaries have complex needs, including financial hardship, mental wellbeing issues, inadequate housing and lack of employment.
Read moreThe RAF Benevolent Fund is delighted to announce our bid for £1m funding from the LIBOR fund has been approved by the Chancellor.
This grant will enable the Fund to respond to the needs of the serving RAF and their families by providing additional facilities and services on RAF stations to enable greater social engagement, better relationships and the provision of welfare facilities.
The Government’s decision was announced today during the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s autumn budget statement in the House of Commons.
Read moreThe RAF Benevolent Fund has launched an appeal for serving RAF personnel, reservists and their partners to complete a short survey to help inform the future of its welfare services.
The RAF’s leading welfare charity has commissioned this new piece of research to enable the charity to better respond to the needs of the serving RAF Family. Those who complete this short survey can enter a prize draw to win up to £500, with an additional 75 runner-up prizes of between £20 and £100 in Amazon vouchers also to be won.
Read morePrincess Marina House, the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund’s flagship care and respite centre on the West Sussex coast, has been awarded an ‘outstanding’ rating following an inspection earlier this year.
Independent regulator the Care Quality Commission rated the home and its Respite at Home service outstanding in three categories caring, responsive and well-led and good in safe and effective – the five key lines of enquiry. Only 2% of adult social care providers have been awarded the overall ‘outstanding’ rating nationally.
Read moreThe RAF Benevolent Fund is delighted to announce the Royal Observer Corps Benevolent Fund has been taken under its wing and will be absorbed by the RAF’s leading welfare charity.
The merging of the two charities builds on the close partnerships and excellent relationships developed over several years.
A small but significant event to mark the official handover took place Bentley Priory, the spiritual home and headquarters of the Royal Observer Corps from July 1936.
Former ROC veterans eligible for help from the ROC Benevolent Fund will now be supported by the RAF Benevolent Fund and will be entitled to the additional welfare initiatives the Fund provides.
Read moreThe RAF Benevolent Fund launched the exciting raffle to win the limited edition car earlier this year. The car is worth £275,000 and tickets to win it are just £20, with all proceeds going towards the RAF’s leading welfare charity in support of the RAF Family, past and present.
The car will visit Canary Wharf in November as part of the area’s Remembrance Day commemorations this year – sited on Reuters Plaza. Plus members of the Red Arrows team including pilots and Red 1 Sqn Ldr David Montenegro and ‘Blues’ – engineers and other support staff – will be visiting the car on November 1 to help sell tickets.
Read more
Afghanistan support
In light of recent events in Afghanistan, please find information and support resources here
