Welcome to the Sarah Merritt Foundation Website
This Website was created by the family of Sarah Jane Merritt in memory of a wonderful caring wife, mother, daughter and sister. We, as a family, were devastated when, on 15th March 2007, Sarah was brutally murdered as she went about her work as a Home Carer in Southampton.
When Sarah died, her heartbroken family vowed to keep her memory alive and decided we must try and put anger and bitterness behind us in an attempt to bring something good out of such an evil act.
Sarah's famiy meant everything to her and she was the "glue" that held us all together.
The purpose of this website is therefore twofold:
(a) to tell the world what a wonderful person Sarah was by sharing information about her and also our feelings and memories of her
(b) to give details of a Campaign we are running and a Charity we are in the process of setting up under "The Sarah Merritt Foundation".
The Campaign is in response to comments made by the then Home Secretary, John Reid, in the House of Commons just after Sarah died when he said all of society should work together to combat the increase in violent crime. The first meeting to form the basis of this Campaign was held on Monday 10th September 2007 and was attended by representatives from government, police, education and church as well as Sarah's family. Details of the meeting are on the campaign page.
The Charity has now been registered and will provide support for Families in Need (FIN). It will give help to families in crisis primarily helping parents who feel they have a child out of control but before the child offends. The help we will offer will be by funding established local care agencies. We now have links with two local organisations : The Hampton Trust and Flower of Justice. We will include information about these organisations as soon as we have finalised the details of how we are able to help them.
The idea for The Sarah Merritt Foundation was born from conversations Sarah and her mum, Margaret, had had over several years when they discussed the falling moral standards and decline in close family relationships and bonds. Sarah and Margaret always acknowledged they had a fun loving and caring family who liked nothing more than to spend time together and Sarah was the instigator of many family get togethers. They often talked about how they might be able to help families in need who didnt have those close bonds and how they would like to help others who wanted to achieve similar relationships. Back then they didn't know exactly what they wanted to do and thank goodness they didn't know what was to happen before the idea became a reality.
The tragic death of Sarah in March 2007 has been devastating to her family and friends and to set-up the Foundation in her memory will be a fitting tribute to a person who loved life itself, but spent most of it dedicated to helping others.
Sarah and her Mum
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Registered Charity No. 1124712
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