Our aim is to raise money for local and regional charities. We operate on a two-year cycle, nominating charities at the start of this cycle and donating at the end.
Current charities
Our current cycle started in January 2023.
- Friends for Families: a small charity working in the Sevenoaks area to help families facing financial hardship. They provide direct, practical assistance to people who have been identified by Children’s Services as needing help which can’t be provided by central or local government: once they’ve received a referral from Children’s Services they step in to help to fill that gap.
- The Maypole Project: provides emotional well-being to the whole family from diagnosis (including ante-natal) through treatment and beyond. Our support is free, ongoing and flexible.
- SERV Kent: also known as the Bloodrunners, SERV is a charity that provides emergency courier services transporting blood products, samples and other patient essential items for the major hospitals and hospices in Kent outside normal working hours.
We also support many local charities. Full details of our most recent donations, in March 2019, can be found here. Due to the COVID pandemic, our fundraising activities were paused and instead of multiple payments to small charities over the period 2020 – 2023, we instead provided ad hoc assistance to a number of charities in specific need.
A Contingency Fund of £1,000 has also been created to support local charities or individuals in need of charitable assistance where this need arises at other times of the year.
Charity nomination process
Charities are nominated at the end of each Carnival year. Details of how to nominate charities will be published here.
Previous charities
In previous years we have been pleased to support:
- 2011 – 2012: Hospice in the Weald and Harris HospiceCare
- 2013 – 2014: The Maypole Project and Age UK Sevenoaks and Tonbridge
- 2015 – 2016: West Kent Mind and a refuge for women and children in West Kent
- 2017 – 2018: ICARE and SERV Kent
- 2019 – 2022: Friends for Families and ICARE