On behalf of the Hope Centre I want to thank everyone for the wonderful donations received from the Harvest Service. These are invaluable to support the community in Partington. For those of you who don’t know what is going on there, this is a quick summary.
The Hope Centre has been running since lockdown started, operating out of the children’s play centre The Hideaway in Partington. Over the past six months, the centre has provided a lifeline for hundreds of residents. During the main lockdown, deliveries included food parcels, hot meals, packed lunches, energy top-ups, pharmacy collections and errands. More than 80 households are still on an on-going support agreement. At present, we deliver food packages to around 30 different households per week; that’s over 100 people fed who would otherwise go hungry.
Long term, the plan is to encourage recipients to move on from the care they’ve been receiving in a way that will help them to be in a stronger position in 12 months’ time. A Hope Centre office has been set up next to the community space/classroom which already hosts Partington’s Connected Job Club and where all free community training, courses and Step up, are held. There are also plans to open a community shop where food and household basics will be sold.
The Hope Centre is funded in a variety of ways – from charitable giving, from local council funding and from local housing associations. We get regular store cupboard food donations from churches in Bowdon and Lymm. The local Co-op regularly donates fresh out-of-date food which we leave in a fridge so that residents can help themselves.
Donations of food are always welcome, and if you feel like volunteering, please let me know – it’s fun and very rewarding. The gap in our worlds is enormous and hard to comprehend. I met someone the other day who could not read and who had tried to fry the pasta we had given him as he didn’t know how to cook it. If you are in a position to help financially, the bank details are on the Hideaway website https://www.thehideawaymanchester.com/support-us.
Once again, thank you for the food donations and do contact me via the Parish Office if you would like to offer any support on a regular or one-off basis.
Vicki Wells
