What is the vision of your Church?
To be an inclusive worshipping community; United in Christ, serving others.
Why has your Church signed the ‘End Poverty Pledge’?
We signed the pledge to be generous with our resources and our talents so that we can better serve everyone in our local community.
What examples can you give of your organisation putting the ‘End Poverty Pledge’ into practice?
We host projects that respond directly to local needs, such as Epsom and Ewell Foodbank. We are able to offer a large amount of storage space for supplies and many of the church members are on the rota as volunteers and/or donate items of food on a regular basis.
We run community events and activities that are open to the community, such as Tuesday Friendship Club and a Coffee morning every Thursday throughout the year which offers a warm friendly space, Craft group, a community choir, Ukulele group meets every Thursday evening and is free and open to anyone, Christmas Fair – a community event where the activities are either free or have a minimal cost to enable as many people as possible to come, Badminton Club meets every Tuesday evening and a Board Games Club every Friday evening, Railway Club meets every Monday evening and is particularly popular with older men who are enthusiasts from the local community and the surrounding area.
Al-anon meet regularly on the premises and make an occasional donation to the church for the use of a room.
We hire out space for organisations to meet and run activities, such as a Pre-school, exercise classes, Pilates classes and language classes.
We donate money to Riverview School (our local primary school), to help children in families who are experiencing financial hardship. This helps to enable them to access trip and activities that they otherwise would be unable to do.
We pay employees the living wage for their work but, as an LEP church, we follow the Methodist Covenant to pay everyone the London Living Wage
What would you hope to be able to do more of in the longer term?
Work more closely with Riverview School to support families in financial hardship in our local community, such as through volunteering to help with reading, cooking and supporting parents.
Put up a board for FREECYCLE. People will be encouraged to photograph and then display what is on offer.
Explore the idea of setting up a `repair cafe’ to connect people with skills with those who need support to repair household items, creating community and support for those in the local area. This is also part of our aim in becoming an ECO Church community – saving items which would otherwise go to landfill as well as saving people money.
We will continue to support the community by running events and activities, and offering the spaces that we have, to meet their needs.