event & community support

This year our Charity of the Year is the Isle of Wight Foodbank, as voted for by Red Funnel customers, the wider Island community and our colleagues.

Isle of Wight Foodbank aims to help those struggling with food poverty and short-term crisis across the Isle of Wight. They operate five cafes across Cowes, Newport, Ryde, Shanklin and the West Wight.

The charity works with approximately 100 frontline care professionals to distribute food vouchers to the Island's community while signposting those needing additional support agencies.

Red Funnel will support The Isle of Wight Foodbank in 2024 by helping to raise awareness within the local community, volunteering their time and fundraising. 

Any customers making a booking with us between now and the end of 2024 will be able to donate at checkout. All donations made will go to Isle of Wight Foodbank. 

Dame Ellen MacArthur knows a thing or two about sailing. But at the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, sailing is just the vehicle in which young people who are living through and beyond cancer are inspired to believe in a brighter future.

“Sailing gives everyone the chance to find out what they are capable of alongside others who completely understand what they’ve been through,” says Dame Ellen of her charity.

Even after they are given the all-clear, cancer can impact young people’s lives long into the future. Their mental wellbeing in particular takes a massive hit.

Once their treatment has finished, they are often left with fewer friends and struggle with relationships, their education suffers, they miss out on work experience, and they develop body image issues. Late effects of being diagnosed young include infertility, extreme fatigue, osteoporosis, thyroid problems, and hearing or vision loss.

Through the charity’s sailing and outdoor adventures, young people gain a new sense of purpose and self-worth, rediscover their independence, and feel optimistic about what comes next in life. They realise what they are capable of, stop feeling like ‘the only one’, and their mental wellbeing improves. They start to re-establish their purpose and place in the world and believe in a brighter future.

Red Funnel kindly cover the costs of young people travelling to the Isle of Wight for this life-changing support. In doing so, they help keep these transformational trips free for young people to access.