In a normal year the festive season is our biggest fundraising opportunity; allowing us to make up the shortfall from our monthly income.  We also usually run our Christmas Card competition to raise money specifically to pay for Christmas presents and to host a Christmas Dinner for everyone we support.  But COVID-19 meant that we had to cancel all of our usual fundraising events and ideas.

What could have been a really difficult financial problem has instead turned into a wonderful opportunity to give thanks for God’s generosity towards us!

When we launched our Christmas Appeal to inform our supporters about this need our target was to raise enough to be able to give each of our beneficiaries a present and a “hamper” of festive food (these transformed into more easily cleanable foil bags!).  Little did we imagine that we would be overwhelmed with donations, coming to nearly £7000!  This has gone a long way towards meeting our shortfall.  We have also been encouraged by a couple of specific grants for materials for our Craft Workshops and towards our plans to build a “Hub” at the Gardening Project!

Excitingly, we were also able to refer some of our beneficiaries to project organised by Riverside Church, to have a cooked turkey dinner delivered to them on Christmas Day!

Thank you so much to all of you; our wonderful family of supporters, who have stood by us through the chaos of Christmas 2020.  Through your prayers, donations and willingness to help in so many ways we have been able to make a very difficult Christmas a little bit brighter for some of our city’s most vulnerable.