Lesley’s story

Lesley’s story

Lesley, an experienced upholsterer with a burgeoning business in Portsmouth, was left struggling financially when she took compassionate leave to care for a member of her family.

Lesley has worked in upholstery for over 15 years, having studied furniture design at university and then an upholstery diploma. She started her career at Morgan Contract Furniture and then S Roberts Upholsterers before taking the bold move to start her own full-time upholstery business in 2020.

Living with autism, Lesley has overcome many challenges in the business world and worked tirelessly to keep her company going throughout the pandemic.

Just prior to Christmas 2023, Lesley made the decision to take on less work so she could focus on supporting her family member, but the loss of earnings left her short in covering her outgoings.

Lesley found out about us via social media and reached out to see if we could help her in the short term with managing her bills and payments, until she was able to work at full capacity again.

Very quickly, we awarded Lesley a welfare grant to cover her costs for a month so that she would have one less thing to worry about.

Lesley recently expressed her immense gratitude: “Thank you to The Furniture Makers’ Company for giving me a welfare grant that covered my loss of earnings and proved to be an incredible lifeline. The charity works hard to support people like me. The thing I appreciated most was how straightforward their help was at a time when my brain was struggling to work properly. I didn’t have to beg of jump through a million exhausting hoops. I just stated my case through their straightforward application, included some relevant paperwork and then waited for their answer which arrived very quickly.

“I want to offer an extra special thanks to Jo, their welfare officer, who reviewed my case and recommended it to the board. We only spoke through email, but your kindness was massively felt and appreciated.”

We’re delighted that Lesley has since been able to resume full time work and is loving being back in business.