Gainsborough charity is on a mission to secure funding for 2024

Journey with Love was first established as a community group in 2020 and registered as a charity in 2022.

Co-founded by Karen Broughton and her second eldest daughter Siobhan, their objective is to create bags for families who have experiences domestic violence to move on from surviving together to thriving.

Karen said: “I'm the manager and do most of the day-to-day running of the charity, and Siobhan is the chairperson of the trustees.

“Journey, with love, was created from our lived experience of domestic abuse from both perspectives of a mum as well as a child which we merged to create our 'with love' bags.”

Karen found there was very little knowledge of how to actively emotionally support families who had experienced domestic violence.

She said: “The general expectation was you left, started over and just simply got on with life.

“Although I received lots of practical support, a place of safety in a refuge, help with money, and re-housing.

“Receiving emotional support would have helped me to work through the aftereffects of the trauma I'd experienced, instead, we stayed stuck in survival mode for years.

“Looking back, I can see just how much this impacted our relationship as a family, bound by our trauma, not by connection.”

Each Journey with Love bags and bracelets are handmade by Karen and her daughter Siobhan and so far, the charity has donated 322 bags in Gainsborough, Scunthorpe, Boston and to three different women’s refuges in London called Hestia.

Karen said: “I'm currently liaising with Lincoln EDAN and Louth Women's Refuge to provide bags in the future. Lincoln EDAN also has an outreach support service here in Gainsborough.”

Journey with Love recently held a Christmas fundraiser with a total of £225 raised alongside other items that had been donated to them. This enabled them to provide a gifts for 70 children across the country.

To find out more about Journey, with Love, visit their Facebook, Instagram or their fundraiser.