So much support for the community
By Monica Jones
St Saviours Church on Vicarage Road, Sunbury, is a place that is open to all. Of course it is a church, yes. And it does operate a food bank. But it is so much more, and eve-ryone is welcome.
These recent cold months it has been a warm hub, where you could get a cuppa and a warm welcome. We went to visit on a cold morning last month. We found groups of people knit-ting, chatting, having cups of tea. There were young and old from all walks of life. Volun-teers were milling around in their distinctive green T shirts, offering a smile, help, a listen-ing ear and advice where required.
The cost of living crisis has made the work done by the St Saviours team all the more important within the community. They have been working with St Mary’s in Lower Sunbury, providing fuel support through the Fuel Allotment Fund to people who are strug-gling. They are also offering free surplus food twice a week. This is donated by local super-markets and retailers. The surplus starts at the Surplus to Supper hub at the Sunbury Cricket Club and is then redistributed. St Saviours is just one of the destinations for this surplus. Food parcels are also available through a referral system and the contents of the dona-tion bins you see in Tesco contribute to these. St Saviour is not just there to serve the needy. They want to be seen as a community hub. It is a place where anyone can drop in, get warm, have a cuppa and biscuit, make new friends and find companionship. With loneli-ness being one of the saddest ills of our cur-rent world, this great meeting place strives to bring people together.
Monday and Thursday are the key community days in the calendar. You can get breakfast on a Monday and there is a community lunch on a Thursday supplied and prepared by Surplus to Supper. St Saviours also have Community Prescribers on hand who work closely with professional outside agencies to whom they can refer people who need help.
Everything is totally free to our community. Donation buckets are available should you feel you can or want to contribute however.
This is the St Saviours week:
Monday 10am-12pm
Breakfast, surplus foodbank, Citizens Advice Bureau. Community Prescribers who can refer to professional outside agencies. Help is on hand with budgeting, benefits, housing, debt and sign posting clients to mental health agen-cies.
Thursday 10am -1.30pm
Stay and Play group 10am-11.45am 0 to pre-school age.
Surplus foodbank, Community Prescribers, lunch 12pm and community life group 12.30am -1.30pm
A2 advice last Thursday of the month.
Fuel support is available Monday and Thurs-day gas and electric top ups between 10am-11.30am
St Saviours are always looking for volunteers so please do get in touch with Donna: donna.mason@stsavs.org or 07496 524693. www.stsaviourssunbury.org.uk