MAIDENHEAD

Here is a report back from Maidenhead who have got involved with The Big Pants Appeal. If you would like to order underwear please head to our site for the google form.

"We delivered 50 packs of boxer shorts, mouthwash and wet wipes to the homeless drop in centre at the Salvation Army in Maidenhead. Lauren Webb from the Brett Foundation was thrilled to receive them. We look forward to supporting them throughout the colder months."

BIG PANTS UPDATE

Our UK churches are getting busy! It's great to see our community working together on the same project and delivering underwear to their local community. So far these churches have come forward to help:

Ashby

Beaumaris

Tewkesbury

Kettering

Tamworth

Wardley

Bournemouth Winton

Maidenhead

and Julie.

Here's a report from Maz at Tewkesbury:

Today I handed over 50 sets of life’s little essentials to Alan at the Cheltenham YMCA from the Christadelphian Outreach Group. They will be distributed to the vulnerable in Cheltenham.

THE BIG PANTS APPEAL

 

LITTER PICKING

 Contact us to receive your litter picking kit!

THE BIG COG CLEAN UP

We are excited to launch our spring project! The Big Cog Clean up is our mission to encourage individuals and church groups to do some litter picking in their local community. COG will supply you with a set of up to 8 litter pickers and 5 high viz jackets to set you up for the task.

Read all about it in our latest newsletter which is being sent to all UK churches and COG reps.

If you haven’t yet received your copy and would like to read it we will be very happy to email or message a copy to you so please just ask.

More posts to come..

PORTHLEVEN

 Firstly, when brought up at our Autumn business meeting 2023, Porthleven Ecclesia agreed it would be good to take an active part in this year’s project, rather than just donate financially.

We approached St Petroc’s Breadline Centre in Penzance asking if the Survival Socks project would be of help to them over Christmas. They were really touched and said we were the only organisation that had approached them this Winter with such an offer. We found out that they have around 24 homeless in Penzance, 12 transient (hopefully short-term) and 12 long-term clients. We also discussed the contents of the socks so it was really helpful seeing a list of items you had thought through already. They agreed these were all really helpful plus gave us a few

extra ideas.

Thank you COG for agreeing to fund 24 pairs of socks at £10 per pair - these were sent via Amazon straight away which gave us the go ahead. As an Ecclesia, we wanted to financially provide for the contents of the socks so a small working group were delegated to research the items we wished to purchase to see how much it would all come to. The LORD is good, and wonderfully, a collection brothers and sisters made prior to Christmas provided over and above our list, so we were able to extend our list. Even a dog walker Sister Ali met one day donated money for the socks when Ali told her about it, plus a work colleague when he got to hear!!!

We realised that all of these items wouldn’t fit into a pair of socks so decided to make drawstring bags and amazingly, materials were gifted to us in just the right quantity. Again: thanks to the Lord’s provision!! We had a lovely morning with a group of sisters and their sewing machines preparing the bags, with labels produced by a brother to be sewn into the bags.

Small hand sanitiser

Small pack of wet wipes

Small pack of tissues

Roll on deodorant

Vaseline lip balm

Toothbrush

Small toothpaste

Multi-vitamins (30)

Small hand cream for dry hands

Pack of chewing gum

Comb

Pen - Ali found lovely ones with Bible verses on

Pocket crossword book

Chocolate bar

Hot chocolate sachet

Small pack Haribo sweets

Box of raisins

x4 protein crunch

Pack of nuts

We wrote a message on the back of an old Christmas card to go in each

bag from us too.

The Sunday before Christmas after our Breaking of Bread meeting, lots of brothers and sisters helped to fill up the bags. They were dropped off at St

Petroc’s over the Christmas weekend.

Thank you for being a catalyst to this outreach project. We really enjoyed working together and to feel we were helping our local community, be it a drop in the ocean. We know the problems in the world are immense, but it does seem better to do something than nothing until Jesus comes as King with God’s power to change things.

NOTTINGHAM

On Sunday 17th of December, some of the brothers and sisters at Nottingham Jarvis Avenue church were involved in preparing and filling socks for the homeless. Twelve pairs of socks were filled in total, with such items as hand gel, tissues, vitamins, toothbrushes etc, including a £5 Greggs voucher. We thought this was also an opportunity to preach the word of God, so cards were also made by sister Faith, which displayed a verse from the bible, and also included a card advertising the bible companion app. These were then taken out into the centre of Nottingham, midweek, and distributed to the homeless. We met some lovely homeless people, one of which had attended a Christian rehabilitation centre for addictions and now seemed to be in a better place. We were able to talk to him about our church at Jarvis Avenue. Another, had been on the streets, homeless, for a year, whilst another was telling us about how he had a son, and spent some time talking to my son Rhydian, who is only 9. All in all, each and every one of the pairs of socks was gratefully received.

ASHTON

 The survival socks project was a great way for Ashton under Lyne ecclesia and the welfare team to help the homeless and refugees,

We are in contact with a local assisted house for 16 and 17 year old unaccompanied refugees and they wanted to show the youngsters a traditional Christmas , we made up 19 sets of socks with small gifts and also provided a few board games and jigsaws, all involved were delighted,

In addition we assisted Lifeshare with in excess of 50 pairs of survival socks which contained anther pair of socks, tooth paste, toothbrushes chocolate, lypsl, granola bars, and some Greggs vouchers to the homeless in central manchester.

We have decided to make the Homeless our priority for 2024.

Thanks to COG who noticed we were supporting 2 causes and provided extra socks , which the ecclesia matched .

Here are a few photos of our welfare team stuffing socks, the box went to Incios home and the bags to Lifeshare.

Thanks to all at COG for this great initiative

MANSFIELD

 A report from our Mansfield church:

Here is a photo of brother John Bennett and sister Margaret presenting the socks to the editor of the local paper , along with a donation to the Beacon charity for the Homeless who were collecting to provide sleeping bags . The children made Christmas cards to go with the socks.

SURVIVAL SOCKS

Our winter project is launched! If you would like paper copies of the flier posting out please let us know.