Reading Mencap is a local charity, which aims to provide help and support for people with a learning disability, and their families, in the Reading area. Although we are affiliated to the Royal Society, we are independently funded. The original group was called The Reading Society for Mentally Handicapped Children and Adults but we changed our name in 2002 to the more easily used title we now have. 

Started more than fifty years ago we moved to our present Victorian building in the mid seventies where we have grown enormously to provide a broad range of activities that you will be able to find out about in the following pages.

In order to provide these services, we need help from the community. If you would like to get involved with the committee, or are interested in volunteering, or could help out with fundraising, we would be very interested to hear from you.

Reading Mencap does receive grants from local bodies, e.g. Reading Borough Council. Without these grants we could not function. However these grants only cover around 50% of the income we need to continue to run our services.

We are therefore very pleased to receive any donations however small to help us in our work. If you are taking part in an event (e.g. a sponsored run) we would obviously be very happy if you could raise funds for us, and Gift Aid is a very easy way of getting sponsorship. Gift Aid is where if you are a tax payer we can claim the tax back (e.g. each £1 you raise/donate is actually worth more to us).