2024, A Year of Community Action
In Hockley we are almost as well known for delivering a calendar of community action projects as we are for our award winning estate agency services. As we finish our last project of 2024, our Letters from Santa we thought it was worthwhile looking back at the various projects organised by our team.
Our first project of 2024 was the Hockley Reading Trail which took place in the February half term holiday to coincide with World Book Day, working alongside Just Love Reading. Youngsters unscrambled letter clues displayed in shopfronts along Spa Road to earn a free book. During the two-week promotion we distributed 160 books.
Continuing our literature theme, we purchased and subsequently distributed to Hockley Primary School two Mental Health Book Packs in March. This project, again alongside Just Love reading was in recognition of the added stress of children affected by the relocation to other teaching settings due to the RAC issue.
As the better weather returned in late March and then throughout the Summer months our popular Community Stalls have become a weekly feature within the Village. From local school PTA’s, RRAVS community groups, U3A, United in Kind, Step Out, Hockley Methodist Church, Recycle, Reuse School Uniforms and several London Marathon fundraisers have used the stall. The concept is very simple, we supply the gazebo, tables, chairs, electric supply, hot tea and most importantly the toilet, all free of charge. Bake sales have been a very popular use and those stalls always raise between £150 and £350 for the relevant charity/good cause. If you consider that we have hosted 23 stalls over18 Saturdays so far in 2024 then potentially that is between £3450 and £8050 raised for good causes from this single project, not bad for two gazebos and four plastic tables!
Another March project saw us create an Easter themed Village Treasure Hunt, this time for youngsters to search for yellow plastic eggs hidden in various locations for them to find and swap at our office for a free Easter Egg. We handed out over 100 eggs.
In June we marked D Day 80 by displaying our knitted Hockley Remembers Poppies and the National Flags of Canada, the USA, France and Great Britain on the railings adjacent to the Hockley War Memorial.
Another June community project was our decorating of all the iron railings in Spa Road with England Football flags and bunting for the European Championships tournament. An indication of the appreciation of this display by local residents and the wider community being that not a single flag was removed over the course of the three-week display period.
To complete our June projects we continued our support by purchasing display sign boards and sold programmes for the Open Gardens fundraiser for Havens Hospices.
In July to coincide with the Summer holidays we held another Hockley Reading Trail
In August we joined forces with United in Kind to distribute ‘Worry Worms’ created by the ‘Hug in a Shrug’ group to children anxious about the return to School.
During September in recognition of Childhood Cancer Awareness we appealed to local youngsters to donate a used toy which our staff re-sold using the community stall outside our office to raise £140 for Children’s Cancer & Leukaemia Group.
In October we launched a new project working alongside a local family to mark Baby Loss Awareness week which saw us appeal for the community to create hundreds of knitted hearts which were then attached to sheets and displayed in two locations within the Rochford District, on the railings at Spa Road and the Salvation Army Church in Rayleigh High Street. The display included a banner with a QR code to raise funds to purchase ‘cold cots’ for the Abigails charity.
November saw the return of our Annual Hockley Remembers display of 7000 knitted and crochet poppies which cover the railings in Spa Road and Main Road to mark Remembrance. This is the biggest display within the area, now in its fifth year and has encouraged other neighbouring towns to follow suit and create displays in their areas as well. Of all our community projects this is the one which we take the greatest pride for, it is truly an honour to deliver every year.
And finally this month December we have celebrated Christmas by decorating the Spa Road railings with green festive baubles to brighten the Village, we have also displayed our ‘Hockley Remembers Tree’ in Spa Road which displays the names of hundreds of people who have passed, all remembered on wooden baubles provided by our business and finally, our ‘Letters to Santa’ promotion is well underway with 172 handwritten letters and magic bells!
All of these promotions are funded by us and provided free to the Hockley community. Look out for some additional projects in 2025, if you have an idea for a fundraiser please let us know. Happy Christmas everyone.