Dame Caroline Dinenage, Member of Parliament for Gosport, welcomed local veterans for a complementary Christmas lunch, courtesy of the Boathouse Café in Gosport Marina, following the closure of FirstLight Trust.
Boathouse Café owners, Monique and Alex, were so saddened to hear of the sudden closure of the FirstLight Trust Cafe on Gosport High Street, leaving veterans without their usual place to gather over the Christmas holidays, they decided to take matters into their own hands!
Today, veterans from the Gosport area were welcomed to a very special Christmas celebration at The Boathouse. Welcomed by MP Caroline Dinenage and Local Councillor Lesley Meenaghan and Santa himself, the former servicemen enjoyed a Christmas lunch.
Commenting after the Christmas lunch, Caroline said:
“I am grateful to the owners of the Boathouse Café, Monique and Alex, for responding to the heartbreaking news of the FirstLight Trust closure and arranging this festive lunch to ensure that some of our more vulnerable veterans don’t miss out on a Christmas celebration.
“Gosport has the highest proportion of veterans in the country, and I am so proud to see how our local community rallied around to support them.”
Alex, a Royal Navy veteran himself, who runs the Boathouse along with wife Monique, said:
“We hated the thought of our veterans missing out at this important time of year, we were delighted to step forward and give a little something back to this community which is home to so many current and former service people.”
The FirstLight charity, which provided dedicated support to veterans from the armed forces and the emergency services for the last eight years, closed this month, meaning its much-loved hub in Gosport shut their doors too.
In November last year, the then Minister of State for Veterans Affairs, the Rt. Hon. Johnny Mercer MP, visited the FirstLight Trust to meet with local veteran groups and see first-hand the vital work done at the hub in strengthening community ties and aiding rehabilitation.
ENDS
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