A message from SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity

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14 February 2025

On February 14, 1885, The Times published a letter from Major – later Colonel Sir – James Gildea asking the public to support the wives, widows, and children of soldiers and sailors who were killed, injured, or rendered incapacitated through service to Queen and Country.
 
This, effectively, was the foundation stone of what became the Soldiers’, Sailors’, and Families’ Association, which in 1919 added Airmen to its title, becoming later SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity.
 
Marking its 140th anniversary in 2025, SSAFA has come a long way since that letter was published in The Times, for which we remain grateful to the-then editor, George Earle Buckle.
 
SSAFA has a volunteer and staff network covering much of the world. It is solidly within British military bases around the globe and within civilian communities at town and county level. It helped around 54,000 people – serving and former personnel, and their families – in 2023 alone, when, where, and how they needed it, while the number of people helped over these 14 decades is almost incalculable.
 
None of this could have been achieved without Sir James’s sense of compassion and duty. 
 
Similarly, none of this could have been and is being achieved without the commitment of SSAFA’s volunteers then and now. 
 
None of this could have been achieved without the dedicated professional staff such as the SSAFA Sisters, formed in 1892 and still going strong from BATUS to Brunei in the guise of the Community Health Team.
 
None of this could have been achieved without the support of fundraisers and donors.
 
To them all, and on behalf of every person SSAFA has ever helped, thank you for ensuring that with our support no-one need ever battle alone.
  
SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity