EVERY winter around 200 people in Wiltshire die of cold and hundreds more struggle to pay their heating bills.

Now Wiltshire Community Foundation has launched its annual appeal to highlight the problem and is calling for those who can afford to live comfortably this winter to donate to help those who can’t.

The foundation works with partner organisations, who identify those who really need help.

Last year they raised £70,000 and helped over 350 households.

Madge Dunham from Salisbury, received a surviving winter grant last year having been referred by Age UK Salisbury District.

She said: “I hadn’t heard of the Community Foundation before. I really needed the grant last year and was making do with old clothes and going without food so I could pay the bills. But now I am better off and I am so grateful.”

Jon Yates, development director at the foundation, said: “Madge is a good example of the wider benefits of this campaign.

“She won’t need the grant again this year so we will be able to help someone else instead.”