Lord Mayor to visit residents at drug and alcohol day programme
The Lord Mayor of Bradford, Coun Naveeda Ikram, will be presented with a cheque for her charity appeal during a visit to a drug and alcohol residential unit.
A group of residents at Jabez Hall took part in a street collection in Bradford city centre in November and raised £190 for the Lord Mayor’s chosen charity, Bradford’s Marie Curie Cancer Care Hospice.
The Lord Mayor will visit the supported accommodation unit on Tuesday, 31 January.
Jabez Hall is a 44 bed residential unit that offers support and accommodation to single people aged 18-years and above who are recovering from drug or alcohol problems and who live in the Bradford and Airedale district.
It operates the Ripple Drug and Alcohol Service, which runs structured day care alongside a 12-step programme that includes relapse prevention sessions, creative therapies, and life skills sessions.
Dave Heaps, from Ripple Drug and Alcohol Service, said: "We approached the Lord Mayor’s Office in the Autumn to ask if we could get involved with volunteering in the local community.
"Residents at Jabez Hall were particularly keen to help the Lord Mayor support the work of Marie Curie as one of our residents, Andrew Murgatroyd, who died of cancer last year, received such wonderful care from staff at the Bradford Hospice.”
The Lord Mayor said: "I am delighted to be visiting the group to collect a cheque for my charity appeal. I first met them on a very cold and dark evening when they could have chosen to stay in and keep warm. Instead they were out braving the elements, talking to people about Marie Curie and collecting for this very worthy charity.”
She has been overwhelmed by the amount of money the residents raised and added: "To raise such a large amount on a cold night in early November when the city centre was fairly quiet was a wonderful outcome - our regular volunteers were amazed and delighted. We hope that the two groups will now be able to work together in the future.”
