Campaign keeping Matthew Gill's memory alive after boost in support for charities

A new campaign set up following the death of a missing man has seen two charities receive a dramatic increase in support.

Coming together to form the group, left to right, Alexia Fletcher, of Kingswinford, Vi Wood, of Wollaston, Steve Phillips, of Sutton Coldfield, Annette Woodhouse, of Stourbridge, and Samantha Billingham, of Quarry Bank

The Link Helping campaign was launched shortly after the discovery of missing 43-year-old Stourbridge man Matthew Gill, known as Liggy, who was found dead in December after an extensive seven-week search.

Stourbridge-based homeless charity Leslie’s Care Packages and domestic abuse charity SODA are the first to benefit from the campaign – which was set up by Matthew’s friend Steve Phillips.

Mr Phillips, 45, from Sutton Coldfield, said: “Up until the point Matt was found I think most of the team believed we would find that he had moved further afield and that he had just gone for some time out.

“When he was discovered and it was in the search area we had looked around for quite a few weeks, that was quite a devastating blow. Out of that has come a determination that we could do more.

“We went to Matt’s funeral and that was obviously a sad day, and then myself and Annette, Matt’s partner, and a few of the other people who had run the social media groups with the ‘Find Liggy’ page, realised we had still got a couple of thousand people who were still willing to help.

“We posted a link to Vi Wood’s page – who is behind the Leslie’s Care Packages charity – just to see what would happen, and she was absolutely swamped – she went from working on her own with distribution packages to needing a warehouse to get all the donations in and to get them distributed.

Coming together to form the group are, top to bottom, Alexia Fletcher, of Kingswinford, Vi Wood, of Wollaston, Samantha Billingham, of Quarry Bank, Annette Woodhouse, of Stourbridge, and Steve Phillips, of Sutton Coldfield

“We have had another few charities come forward and one of them is SODA – Survivors of Domestic Abuse – which is Samantha Billingham’s page.

"It’s grown from this, we have attracted some members from the Find Liggy page to us and now we are in a position to give it a good push.

“We have got all these charities that need help and we have got a group of people that want to and we’re just trying to plug them all together and see what will happen.

“It’s quite comforting to the family to know that there are still caring people in the community. We have got a real opportunity now to use this group to do something special.”

Samantha Billingham, 37, from Quarry Bank, said: “I think it’s a fantastic legacy that Matt has left behind, this is something his memory will be kept alive through.”

Samantha Billingham and Vi Wood are both finalists in the Express & Star’s Great Big Thank You awards.

The Link Helping group can be accessed by visiting the Facebook page.