A BASINGSTOKE charity is celebrating after winning a share of the cash grants from the Gazette’s parent company.

The Safe, based in Winchester Street at The Top of Town in Basingstoke, has won £217.68 after getting 50 votes.

Our parent company’s charitable arm, The Gannett Foundation, is providing £125,000 in cash to support local charities across the country, and £20,000 of this is being given to charities in Hampshire.

The Safe received 50 votes from our readers, which amounted to 1.09 per cent of the total votes.

The Safe coordinator Ayliffe Taylor said she is massively delighted about the winning and thanked the Gazette readers for voting for the local charity.

“Cash for Charities programme is a brilliant scheme for local charities,” Ms Taylor said.

“It not only supports us financially but also gives publicity to little-known charities. Sometimes it is difficult to send the word out about our charity, and we don’t want to bombard people with promotions. So the Gazette’s scheme is a brilliant way to reach out to more people.”

“It is also such a positive programme in these difficult periods.”

The Basingstoke charity provides baby clothing and equipment for kids up to age two years from families that are financially unable to provide for themselves. The charity also offers support groups for mothers and their pre-schoolers, bereaved parents, lone dads and parents of young people with mental health concerns.

In the past few weeks, The Safe volunteers were busy helping families across the region get Christmas gifts for their children.

“We have had about 120 people attend our free toy banks to choose gifts for their children,” Ms Taylor said.

“We have so far given out about 150 Christmas eve packs. We also have Father Christmas recording Christmas videos for children. Most of our Christmas events are done now because we try to finish them well in advance so that parents won’t have the stress of wondering if they are going to have presents for Christmas.”

The other charities nominated for the Hants and Dorset area were Amelia's Rainbow, Communicare in Southampton, Cornwall Accessible Activities Program, South Wight Area Youth Partnership, The Bridge Youth Project and The Will Macakness Trust.