Generous Guardian and Observer readers gave more than £78,000 over the phones during our annual charity telethon in aid of grassroots voluntary groups helping people who are struggling with the cost of living crisis.
A roster of star journalists including Marina Hyde, John Crace, Polly Toynbee, Owen Jones, Jonathan Freedland, Tim Dowling, and Zoe Williams were on hand in the Guardian offices on Saturday to take calls and chat to readers as phones rang constantly over the eight-hour event.
This year’s appeal is raising money for grassroots UK charities providing much-needed support services to people struggling to heat their homes and feed their families, via our two charity partners, Citizens Advice and Locality.
The telethon gave a massive boost to the overall total raised by the 2022 appeal, which stands at £600,000, just over a week into the campaign. More than 6,000 readers have so far donated. The appeal runs into the new year.
Donations will go to local voluntary organisations working in some of the UK’s most deprived areas, which are providing crisis support ranging from food banks and warm rooms to debt, benefits and housing advice, and mental health help.
Tony Armstrong, the chief executive of Locality, said: “Thank you so much for supporting the work of Locality members. These community organisations use their local knowledge and relationships to reach the people most in need – the people who are often forgotten or left behind. Your donations will help our members to transform lives, neighbourhoods and communities – and ultimately to create a fairer, more compassionate society.”
Among those answering your calls was the Guardian editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner. In her column introducing the appeal, she wrote how it was inspired by anger and frustration at how deepening hardship in the UK had become an appalling “heat or eat” dilemma for millions of people.
“I have spent much of the last few months feeling furious, and I know many readers have too: a rage driven by the fact that in the sixth-largest economy in the world, there are so many children going to school hungry, so many families sitting freezing in the cold,” she wrote.
Other journalists who came in for telethon shifts included Peter Bradshaw, Amelia Gentleman, Jess Cartner-Morley, Nosheen Iqbal, Simon Hattenstone, Emma Graham-Harrison, Hugh Muir, Gaby Hinsliff, Owen Gibson, Lisa O’Carroll, Andrew Sparrow, Nadia Khomami, Archie Bland, Helena Horton, Denis Campbell, Dan Sabbagh, Matthew Weaver, and many others.
