Chiswick Book Festival Raises £11,000 for Good Causes

Money to be split between three charities and the church

The festival charities receive their very big cheques
The festival charities receive their very big cheques

Related Links

Plaque Unveiled to Michael Flanders in Bedford Park

Chiswick Book Festival Announces Charity Shake Up

Two More Names Added To Chiswick Writers Trail

Dylan Thomas and James Berry Added to the Chiswick Writers Trail

And Ant and Dec Bring the Chiswick Timeline of Writers Total to 400

Iris Murdoch Deemed Top Pick for Next Chiswick Blue Plaque

Disappointment for Anthony Burgess Blue Plaque Bid

Young Local Poets Excel in Competition

Participate

Sign up for our weekly Chiswick newsletter

Comment on this story on the

February 28, 2023

Last year’s Chiswick Book Festival raised £11,000 which is being split between its three designated charities and St Michael and All Angels Church where it is hosted.

The event in September featured the usual line-up of well-known authors including Dame Eileen Atkins, Chris Patten, Cressida Cowell and Reverend Richard Coles.

The charities, which received £2,750 each at a handover ceremony at the church, are Doorstep Library, which runs home reading projects for disadvantaged children in Hammersmith and Fulham, InterAct Stroke Support, which provides actors to read books to stroke patients in west London hospitals and Read for Good, which helps children to read for pleasure through programmes in schools and hospitals. St Michael & All Angels Church hosts and administers the festival and is itself a charity.

For the 2023 festival Read Easy Ealing and Koestler Arts will join Read for Good as the Festival’s designated charities.

Since the Festival started in 2009, it has raised more than £120,000 for reading and community charities, including St Michael & All Angels Church, which runs it as part of its mission of arts and community outreach. The festival donates all its profit after costs to its charity partners and actively promotes their activities and need for volunteers throughout the year. Each year, it supports three nominated charities alongside the church.

Torin Douglas, director of the Chiswick Book Festival, said, “After the COVID lockdown, we were glad to be back to full capacity again and we’re delighted to give these sums to such worthwhile charities. We’re very grateful to our authors, venues, volunteers, sponsors and those who bought tickets, who made it possible.”

Two of the current charities - Doorstep Library and InterAct Stroke Support - are benefitting for the last time after several years of support. They were joined in 2022 by Read for Good, which is using the Festival’s funds to provide books and storyteller visits for seriously ill children in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

Katie Bareham, CEO of Doorstep Library, said, Thank you so much for the fantastic donation. We have loved being part of the festival over the years and are extremely grateful to you for your support. I’m so pleased that our volunteer Brian Smith, who first heard about Doorstep Library through the Chiswick Book Festival, could represent us at the handover.”

Nirjay Mahindru, CEO of InterAct Stroke Support, said, “We are extremely grateful for such a wonderful sum and thank you for the many years of generosity to InterAct. We are now working on projects with Read For Good as a result of being introduced by the Chiswick Book Festival!”

Justine Daniels, CEO of Read for Good, “We are truly grateful for this donation, which is wonderful, and we are also very appreciative of the other lovely ripple effects that have happened as a result of us working with Chiswick Book Festival. We look forward to working with your two new charities at this year’s Festival.”

For the next three years alongside Read for Good, the Festival will support Koestler Arts, the leading prison arts charity, which is based in W12 and promotes writing, reading and literacy in the criminal justice system, and Read Easy Ealing, a new charity set up in 2021, which provides one-to-one reading tuition for local adults who want to learn to read or improve their reading skills. The national Read Easy charity came to prominence through a BBC documentary about Jay Blades, presenter of The Repair Shop, who learned to read at the age of 51.

This year’s Festival will run from 6 to 13 September 2023. To keep up with the latest programme announcements you can join the festival mailing list.

Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More

This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism.

Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets.

We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more.

However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do.

We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area.

A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site.

One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute.

If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor.

For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site.



Bookmark and Share