We have been incredibly busy recently, this is sadly due to an increase in the number of people we are supporting. We have also been utterly amazed at the continued wonderful support from our community.
So time for an update as to what we at Christchurch Soup Kitchen are doing:
We are supporting an increased number of people who are rough sleepers, in temporary accommodation, in poor accommodation or having difficulties with finances/benefits.
We support these people by cooking hot nutritious meals 6 days a week.
We provide clothing, toiletries, sleeping bags, tents, decent sturdy weather proof footwear and whatever else people need, people can have what they need, it’s important to know we can provide this help for them.
We also have a washing service for them and a wash and swap service for sleeping bags.
As well as providing a hot meal and hot drinks, we also ensure that people have lunch for the following day. We collect from Greggs six days a week and this ensures that our men and women have a range of food to keep them going the following day until our early evening hot meal.
Coming up to Christmas we have wonderful shoe boxes filled with all sorts. This has kindly been done by the generous Girls Brigade in Burton.
We have also had many donations of goodies for our men and women to make the Christmas period feel more festive for them. They will all have a wrapped box and some gifts. These will be going out to not just the rough sleepers but to all the people we support.
Also, by being out there 6 days a week we get to know our men and women, we have time to listen and support them, this enables us to help people move on in their personal journey. We work in teams of four each night, a different team each day but the guys know who will be on each day, reliability helps with trust.
We are only shut Christmas Day, but Somerford ARC are running a Christmas Day lunch for free with transport available for anyone who is alone or needs it.
We will be back out Boxing Day.
This is what your amazing support and donations helps provide. You do this! Yes you sat watching TV! Or you updating your Facebook status at the moment thinking you don’t do a lot! Well yes you do, you gave some warm hoodies to us, you donated £10, you gave us a jar of coffee, you set up a monthly standing order, you gave us a Sainsbury’s voucher to help buy some food, you spread the word of what we do.
All of you amazing people in the community have enabled us to continue this work.
We are a registered charity and we do solely rely on the community for our support so please can I ask that you continue doing this. Winter is coming, those who need us need far more support in the winter plus we are supporting more people.
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