Choir donates to Crisis homeless charity

February 8: Choir chair Kim Ormond handed a donation of £916 for the Crisis homeless charity to its representative Leigh Hall at a brief ceremony at choir rehearsal on Thursday.

Leigh accepts £916 cheque from Kim

The funds were donated by appreciative audience members during the choir’s two appearances at Sutton shopping centre at Christmas.

Ms Hall, who is an Operations Manager at the charity’s Croydon offices, told the choir that it was funded entirely by donations such as the choir’s.  “It is the generosity of people like you that allow us to help so many people.  Demand for our services has never been higher and we are struggling to meet the ever-increasing demand.”

The choir sang at Sutton’s St Nicholas Shopping Centre on 7 and 20 December.  Previously it had staged its Christmas sings at Croydon’s Whitgift centre, but was prevented from doing so by the Westfield management company who were  dubbed Scrooges by Inside Croydon, the hard-hitting local news-site.

The choir at Sutton

The Croydon base of Crisis, named Skylight, is at 12 Surrey Street, where it helps homeless people find a home or work and looks after their health and wellbeing.  “We work with people in Croydon to help them rebuild their lives and leave homelessness behind for good,” a notice on the Crisis website says.

Ms Hall told choir members that she would be happy to show any of them around the Skylight centre to see what Crisis did there.

She added: “Thank you so much for your support and this generous donation.  It really does make a difference.”

The donation to Crisis follows the £1500 the choir helped raise for the Demelza Hospice Care for Children charity at CMVC's Christmas concert at St John's, Shirley on December 13.

Meanwhile the St Nicholas centre has told the choir it was delighted with its performances, and has already invited it to appear again at Christmas 2026.