The boss of a Rutland charity says there is a growing demand for their services as the cost of living crisis continues to bite. 

Tom Walters, chief executive of Voluntary Action Rutland (VAR), says the charity has handed out more than £2,000 worth of emergency help to local families in the six months since May, as families struggling with increased food prices and utility bills struggle to pay for all they need. 

The charity has helped people to buy white goods, specialist beds and even a pair of football boots for a child who had started an after-school club.

Referrals are made by local organisations and are anonymous. 

He said: "The need is there. I think people who don't live in Rutland look at Rutland and see affluence, and there is affluence, but there is also a huge number of very normal people who have really felt the sting of rising living costs. 

"There is also a large percentage of our population that don't earn a lot of money that have really felt it, because it is an expensive place to live. It has the highest council tax in the country and it does not have good access to services and it can be underfunded because it is a small county."  

The main bulk of the charity's work is community transport – it has a fleet of 65 drivers who take the elderly and vulnerable to health appointments and other vital trips such as the weekly food shop. The cost charged to users is 70p per mile, with 45p of that paid to the volunteer drivers. It also hires out vehicles to community groups. 

But Tom says while the charity delivers thousands of journeys each year, demand is so much that sometimes its customers have to be told a journey is not possible. 

He said: "If we had 170 volunteers, we would be able to use all of them. We are desperate for more drivers, more ladies who would like to drive, more drivers who are willing to drive a minibus." 

Established in the 1980s, like many, the charity was affected by covid and in 2022 it sold its premises in Lands' End Way, Oakham and moved into a rented base at the Oakham Enterprise Centre. 

From there a team of staff and volunteers administer the daily running of the organisation, which also involves a contract with the county council to take some special needs children to school and running monthly community lunches in collaboration with local company Lands' End. 

Tom, who worked as a solicitor and lecturer before joining the voluntary sector, says he wants to ensure the charity reaches far and wide. His main priority is making sure VAR lives up its name. 

"We are Voluntary Action Rutland," he said. "We are not voluntary transport or anything else. We have a big name. I don't mean we're famous, I mean it's wide. We have always been heavily involved in volunteering in the county and I need to make sure that we work and collaborate across all the community groups."  

He wants to look at what the whole county needs, including and beyond Oakham, specifying: "If we are going to make this little county work, it has to be Oakham, Uppingham and 52 villages." 

Tom also has "a quest for sustainability". 

"I feel heavily that it's my job to make sure that in another 40 years-time VAR is still here," he said. 

"We have to make sure that the projects that we deliver are sustainable and some of that will have to come from third party funding, because you can't run a charity on 25p a mile."  

This year the charity will once again be running its Christmas appeal, which gives presents or assistance to local people in need during the festive season. 

People can donate via the website and there are drop off points for new items at venues across the county.  

For more information call VAR on 01572 723300.