The Charity

Updated 20th July 2008

The Sarah Merritt Foundation is a Charity in the process of being registered (now registered) which 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 way of funding established local Care Agencies.

The Charity is dependent upon fund raising events and the generosity of the general public as well as private and commercial donations and government funding.

The Charity will be run by Sarah's family and others  and will work closely with local organisations.

We will keep everyone informed of developments in the setting up of the Charity and also Fund Raising Events as they happen via this Website and the Newsletters.

The papers to register the Charity have now been sent to The Charity Commissioners.  The first trustees are Sarah's husband Peter, her mum Margaret and Paul Finn, pastor of Southampton Christian Fellowship.  Sarah's brother Mark is Treasurer.  We propose to bring in other trustees once we have got established. 

It has taken quite a long time to get this far but there has been a lot to prepare and time is always our biggest enemy. 

We hope that the Charity will be registered in a very short time now.  Unfortunately, the papers were returned by the Charity Commissioners as the forms had changed and so we had to complete them all again.  The Commissioners then raised several queries but we think all is in order now and we are hopeful of receiving our charity status in the next few weeks.

We are so pleased to report that the charity is now registered under Number 1124712.  We are so grateful to the Charity Commissioners for the help they have given us.

We have decided to link with The Hampton Trust and will be supporting them from funds raised by this Charity in their work with families. 

We are also linking with Flower of Justice, a small local charity which helps families in an  area of Southampton called the Flower Road.

More information on both of these organisations shortly.