A WEST Devon charity that provides financial support to people in Tavistock and several of its surrounding villages is appealing for volunteers to come forward as trustees — if not enough support comes forward, the charity will have to make a difficult decision as to whether it can continue.

Tavistock and District Nursing Fund (TDNF) supports people in need in Tavistock, Whitchurch, Lamerton, Mary Tavy, Peter Tavy and Gulworthy. The charity was set up in 1954 after the creation of the NHS and it has helped many people in that time. The charity was originally set up to support the supply of special food and medicines, bedding, fuel, medical and surgical appliances, domestic help and grants. Most of these benefits are now provided by the social security benefit system but the charity has continued to support people in need.

The charity has recently provided a grant towards the cost of a wheelchair, given funds towards the purchase of a fridge to store medicines and helped with heating bills.

Now however, long standing chair Judith Williams is retiring from her position and the treasurer would like to step down. There are also not as many trustees on the board as are needed. An AGM is being held on May 16 to try to gain some more support or to make a decision on the charity’s future if no one comes forward.

Trustee Sandra Dodd said: ‘We are at a bit of a crossroads at the moment. The charity has been around for a long time and it has helped many people over the years. Now the chair is retiring, the treasurer would like to step down and we are lacking trustees from certain parishes. We would like to make a drive to get people on board, not necessarily to fill the positions but just for more people to get involved.

‘The district nurses are very good at letting us know if there are people in need, as are the churches. We recently helped a young girl with ME who needed a laptop and we put some money towards it. We’ve also helped a lot of people who have fallen between benefits, paid towards heating bills and just helped people out with the extra things they might need.’

Sandra said year on year the charity has around 20 to 24 applications for funding and have a set amount each year that they can distribute.

The charity is hoping interested people will come along to the AGM and offer support.

‘Anyone is welcome to come along and find out more. We need people from the parishes to join. We are supposed to have one trustee from each parish ideally but we just want people to come forward who are interested because they will be more likely to come to the meetings and get involved. We only have two trustee meetings a year so it is not that onerous a task.

‘If people don’t come forward at the AGM we will have to make the decision to dissolve the charity. If this fund wasn’t here, these people would have to look for the money elsewhere. We are quite blessed in Tavistock with different organisations that support people physically and financially but there are still those who need our help. We just want to make people aware that the charity is there to help and we need people to run it.‘

The AGM will be held in the council chamber in Drake Road, Tavistock at 4pm on May 16. Anyone who would like to be involved or would like to find out more can contact Sandra Dodd on 01822 810343 or G Manning on 01822 615311.

If not enough support comes forward before the AGM, the trustees will make a decision at the meeting on the future of the charity.