The Duchess of Edinburgh is renowned for her hands-on approach to her royal duties, and during one emotive engagement with Ukrainian refugees, it's been revealed to HELLO! how compassionate Sophie "held space" for the people she met.
Sophie, 60, has been involved with The Lighthouse since 2020, a Surrey and Hampshire-based charity which helps to support marginalised and vulnerable members of society through its various programmes and initiatives.
Over the past five years, the Duchess has visited different groups over three of its four sites in Woking, Barnsbury and Aldershot.
The Lighthouse's co-founder, Erik Jespersen, tells HELLO! how the Duchess always connects with clients on a human level.
"Obviously we're trying to make it easy for her just to say hello and say a few nice words to people, but she actually is the one who sits down and has deep conversations with people and – you know, 'Forget the schedule, forget the program, I really want to hear their stories'.
"She sat around a table with some of our homeless clients and just really got into their stories in a beautiful way. They absolutely loved her interest in them."
Emotional visit
Recalling one memorable visit, Erik tells HELLO!: "We had one incident where she was sitting around the table talking to a group of people, and they started asking her about the royal family at Christmas, and I was like, 'Oh no, you know, there's probably some protocol around this kind of thing'. And she was brilliant. She was humorous and honest and just really willing to engage."
In 2023, Sophie rolled up her sleeves and donned an apron as she served up a festive dinner at a Christmas party to support over 200 local Ukrainian refugees.
Speaking about that particular visit, Erik says: "There's been tears and real deep emotion being shared, and she just holds the space and lets them speak, lets them know they're being heard, lets them know that they're valued and that their story is important."
From cuddling babies at a parenting group at the Jigsaw hub at the charity's Woking branch to planting a blueberry bush in the garden at the Aldershot location, Sophie is "very happy" to do any of the activities the team puts to her.
"I think she loves it if it's really meaningful, it's not just a token, but that it really makes an impact," Erik tells HELLO!. "So everything from serving coffees in our social enterprise or serving Christmas dinner or sorting out baby clothes and donations, whatever's helpful. She just wants to get stuck in."
Reaching out
Sophie became patron of The Lighthouse in 2022, but her team reached out to the charity before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, saying that the Duchess would "love to come and volunteer and visit".
While lockdown put arrangements on the backbench briefly, Sophie reached out again to the charity to ask if she could help.
"There were a couple of other times through COVID where she just came very discreetly on her own and volunteered in the food bank and in our Jigsaw project, off the radar as it were, which was really lovely," Erik reveals. "She just wanted to be practical and help and do something to make a difference during COVID. She was really great during that time, like I say, just wanting to roll her sleeves up and get involved. That was her way of engaging with us.
"I think she seemed to just immediately catch the heart of [the charity] because obviously the practical things we do are meaningful, but there's a real heart behind it in just the way that we engage with people, that is marked by dignity and respect and very empowering to the people we work with. I think that connected a lot with her own values of the work that she's done historically around things like empowerment and dignity, so there was a real kind of connection and synergy there."
Proactive patron
In amongst her busy schedule, there are plans for the Duchess to visit the Guildford branch of The Lighthouse this year.
Sophie's role as royal patron has helped to raise the charity's profile and story "significantly".
And she has proven to be the most proactive of royal patrons, even bringing some of her own ideas to the table.
"One example, over lunch one day, just talking about some things we could be doing over the next year to develop our work, and we happen to be eating soup that's made fresh in our social enterprise coffeehouse. And we serve it in distinctive jars," Erik reveals to HELLO!.
"And she said, 'Oh, this is the best soup I've ever had. I love these jars. You should market this. You should actually sell this in these jars to raise money for the charity, let people be able to buy the jars and take it away'.
"It was such a fun idea and we ended up doing it and then she came in when she was volunteering and did like a whole thing of serving the first one as we launched it and it was so lovely."
To learn more about and support The Lighthouse's work, visit the-lighthouse.info
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