An Hour For Others, a local Liverpool charity, has been a pioneer in the city and across the region in empowering people and their communities for more than a decade now.

Despite the acclaim that they have been receiving since they were founded in 2014, they are still a relatively best-kept secret and operate with a small team in spite of their huge successes to date.

Joel Jelen came across founders Gill Watkins and Kev Morland at Jane Reid and Maxwell Hodge’s highly prized ‘Simply Castle Street Network’ and sat down with them at their business HQ in the Cotton Exchange in Liverpool City Centre to hear more about their vision, goals and aspirations for the remainder of 2026 and beyond.

He started by asking Kev how An Hour For Others came about. “The seed was well and truly planted when I stared reality and responsibility in the face. My mum had terminal cancer in 2007 and she told me she was really worried about me. I felt a fire in my belly and said to my mum that I was going to make her proud every single day.” Incredibly powerful and poignant words indeed.

Forward to 2014, and Kev met Gill for a first date. Little did she know that Kev had more than romance in mind, he had a business plan too!

The date was a success and Kev said: “Gill was really receptive to my idea in wanting to help communities, it was exactly what she was about. Fortunately too, Gill was an accountant and was able to help me put the pieces of the jigsaw together. She was the missing link in my life, in many ways.”

Gill describes that first date as a bit crazy! “I turned up for coffee and Kev told me he wanted to change the world! We were perfectly aligned because although my career to date had been corporate, my heart, for many reasons and some very personal, was firmly heading in the direction of giving back in my work.”

Shortly after, Gill took the opportunity of an offer of redundancy, encouraged Kev to crack on – and the rest is history! They both decided that the theme of An Hour For Others was about “taking action from the inside out” as Kev describes it. He added: “We’re all about working with people within our community here on Merseyside to make them realise they have the power to make a difference to how we all live our lives. Creating better communities happens when you enable more people to live their lives successfully. We endeavour to achieve this by working in unity, with compassion, respect, kindness and love. This is how we’ve been transforming our world around us in the Liverpool City Region.”

Nodding in agreement, Gill told Joel, “From little acorns, as they say, we’ve attracted a team of volunteers, local businesses and grants, to create multiple programmes of initiatives and activities that represent the catalyst for change set out in our vision. We’re an inclusive organisation, as you would expect, with people of all ages and across all backgrounds benefitting from their well-being, enrolling on training courses to upskill, and embracing other multi-faceted projects that will support people through times of need. Our aspirations include helping people realise their ambition of how they can live in a community where there’s less crime, less poverty, and less sickness. Where people are happy, healthy, fulfilled and where there’s more equality. And we feel that by working together, we can begin to make this their reality.”

My Planet Liverpool has visited AHFO’s community hubs in Huyton and Tuebrook to witness the inspiring work they do. Now Kev and Gill are keen for An Hour For Others to grow their team, with more people, community-oriented organisations and private sector businesses, all volunteering their time or, where possible, donating much-needed funds.

Gill added: “We’re constantly looking for more individuals, businesses or groups to get involved with us. The smallest actions really can make the biggest difference. We’ll be promoting our message much stronger this year too. We’ve become a platform for many businesses who want to show their kindness, with their teams commenting on how showing empathy towards community needs across the region has been so rewarding. We’re really keen to grow our reach too, engaging with many more like-minded companies. Some prefer to donate funds, with An Hour For Others facilitating their corporate social responsibilities. Other companies have given us their staff to facilitate specific programmes. The messages are really the same whoever we engage with. Helping people to claim their power to help others is definitely key to what we do. But also, and in the process, it’s about an aspect of human beings that goes a little deeper. Sharing our ethos about self-kindness.

“It’s a win-win really. We empower people to realise their power to support others and those same people get to spend more time in self-kindness by doing so. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s why we get such great feedback around empathy feeling so good.”

Gill and Kev mentioned many collaborating companies in their conversations with Joel and they promised AHFO will be highlighting these much more as their awareness campaign grows in 2026.

They both say agree when saying, “We are so blessed to have received support from: Really Epic Dog, Liverpool Property Solutions, Barclays, Bruntwood, Blanca Sport, Jaguar Land Rover, In Demand Radio, and Carpet Warehouse.

“There are others too and we’ll be sharing their wonderful support along with the above companies throughout the course of our 2026 campaign.”

Find out more about An Hour For Others, their community hubs and wellbeing programmes and how as a business you can help drive their campaign forward, while helping your own team in the process.

https://www.anhourforothers.co.uk/