However, we hope that you will now be able to consider helping your local charity which also suffered from terrible flood damage and I am happy to provide readers with some background information.
The Northumberland County Blind Association is a charity which has been providing vital services for local blind and partially-sighted people since 1992 (and formerly as a trust fund since 1929), whose mission is "to support all vision-impaired people throughout Northumberland".
We own a purpose-built resource centre based in Morpeth funded in 2000 by the National Lottery Community Fund.
On September 6, 2008, our Resource Centre was badly affected by the flooding in Morpeth, and 95 per cent of the contents were lost.
We are currently operating from temporary premises based in Ashington until the damage can be repaired and hope to move back to Morpeth in April 2009.
We are very proud to say that this did not affect our service and we have continued to provide vital services to vision-impaired people.
We had moved into temporary accommodation and set up loaned computers, desks, furniture and phones within a week in order to continue supporting people throughout the county.
Although we are covered by insurance for the building and some equipment, we will not be able to recoup all of the expensive equipment that was very kindly donated by friends of NCBA.
If you have ever considered making a donation to a society supporting vision-impaired people, then please do it now when we need you the most.
No matter how small, every penny will count. You can either send in a postal order or cheque made payable to NCBA at Unit 27, Wansbeck Business Centre, Rotary Parkway, Ashington NE63 8QZ, or call in to our new temporary office personally – we would be pleased to see you. Thank you for your donation in advance.
Gwen Marriott, Head of Services,
Northumberland County Blind Association