VOLUNTEERS have given £500,000 and three properties, one of which will be a hostel for vulnerable young women, to charity.

Gravesend Soroptimist Club has given the cash and two houses to housing charity Gravesend Churches Housing Association (GCHA).

The group of 33 professional women, who volunteer to improve their community, has given another house to North Kent Women’s Aid, a charity for victims of domestic abuse.

This will be converted into a hostel for up to eight homeless women, to try to prevent them falling into a life of prostitution, and open later this year under the name Soroptimist House.

Soroptimist Valerie Boswell is also the chairwoman of North Kent Women’s Aid, and she said: “This gift of a house and the money to refurbish it will broaden the work of our organisation to enable this provision for young women.”

Gravesend Soroptimists pioneered the national associations move into providing housing in 1958, and has managed a number of properties in Gravesham since then.

Chair of its housing association committee Sheila Knight said: “The financial and legal burdens of complying with increasing legislation, and maintenance of our properties, has become too onerous for a voluntary association such as ours.

“We believe the future of our houses and tenants is with a professionally managed association which offers a local presence and whose ethos reflects that of Soroptimists.

“GCHA has been the managing agent of our properties for the past nine years and we believe they will carry on the excellent service our residents have rightly come to expect.”

GCHA was founded over 40 years ago and is a registered social landlord providing mainly poor, disabled, and chronically sick people with homes.

Chief executive Veronica Mabey said: “We are proud to have worked alongside Soroptimist Housing over the past nine years and thank them for their vote of confidence in GCHA as a local provider of quality housing services.”

The Soroptimists raised the £500,000 through the sale of a fourth property three years ago.

For more information on the club, call Isobel Kesby on 01474 351492.