Extra Howbery space supports Style Acre’s services

Style Acre is using some extra office space at Howbery Park to give the charity enough room to run their day opportunity support services for people with learning disabilities and autism.

Style Acre is offering two people one-to-one day support sessions in Howbery’s Innovation Centre as they were unable to move into a new supported living house in Wantage in August as planned. The coronavirus pandemic has led to its opening being delayed to October. Although the people who will be moving into the house are continuing to sleep overnight in their homes, daytime support is helping them get to know the charity better, and helps Style Acre plan for the mix of people in the house.

“We’re really grateful to Howbery for letting us use the extra office space,” commented Cheryl Claxton, Fundraising & Marketing Manager at Style Acre. “We needed more space to offer these two people support, as we are now taking smaller groups than usual in our community hub building because of the pandemic. We are taking people out for walks and trips to replace activities in the building, but we needed some additional building space for these two people. It makes a big difference to how we can support these people at this time, when we do not have additional funds to hire building space.”

Style Acre runs one of its community hubs from the ground floor of the Howbery Evenlode building (pictured above pre-Covid-19), while it has an office upstairs. The running of the community hubs is subsidised through  fundraising – there are two further hubs in Didcot and Banbury. The charity also has a shop in Wallingford and a Tea Room in Blewbury, which[CC1]  offer work placement opportunities for the people it supports.

Howbery Park Estates Manager Donna Bowles said: “Style Acre is a great charity, and has been an exemplary tenant, so we were pleased to help out by offering some Innovation Centre space free of charge.”