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Winter
Night Shelters
We are one of the teams of volunteers going to inner-city
Church Halls throughout the winter to set up beds for the night and serve
a hot meal. Last winter the nightly numbers catered for reached a peak
of 30. The volunteers are directed and supported by the skilled and dedicated
staff from Bethany Christian Trust. Every year Pauline Walker will be
recruiting teams.
Food
Donations
Every Sunday the non-perishable food items placed in the
box at the front door of the church are collected. While some of the food
is distributed directly to the homeless, most of it is used to provide
the ingredients for soup-kitchen food. Pulses, pasta and tinned vegetables
are welcome, but instant coffee is very useful too. Please remember this
work when you do your Saturday shopping.
Help
the Homeless Stalls
On the last Sunday of each month, Margo Fraser will be
setting up shop in the Main Hall with help from other members of
the Group: it may be a collection point for items for Fresh Start packs
or some other project.
Fresh
Start
Heather Shanks keeps us in touch with Fresh Start's
latest needs in providing a starter pack for a new tenant. Heather was
awarded a Testimonial by the City for her work with rehoused homeless.
Each
month the Greenbank Congregation donates items which help to make-up Starter
Packs. They have done this for 7 years. Starter Packs were set up as part
of the Edinburgh Presbytery’s Millennium Project. This was to provide
a way in which the people of Edinburgh, through their Churches, could
help to alleviate the plight of the homeless. It took off and in 1999
became a Charity in its own right called Fresh Start.
Fresh Start now has 3 branches:
1) Starter Packs - which supply people with basic essentials when they
first move into an empty flat allocated to them by the Council.
2) Hit Squads - who work with a new tenant to help decorate two rooms
of the flat.
3) Befriending - on a one to one basis trained volunteers help to give
the client informal social and emotional support.
Are we being successful in our aims?
Starter Packs:
· During 2003 6,383 packs were made up and distributed to 2,000
households on low income
· 86 church congregations made regular contributions
· 85 regular volunteers donated 2,930 hours of work to the scheme
Hit Squad Service:
· 48 referrals were received for the service and 42 jobs were completed
· 8 out of 10 people were successful in establishing their tenancy
· 26 volunteers donated 1,230 hours
Befriending Service:
· 15 people received the service
· 8 matches were successfully completed, the longest being 23 months,
the shortest 1 month
Do you have the time and skills to help decorate a room or talk to someone
and raise their self esteem? Volunteers for the Befriending Service are
at this time being recruited for training.
Thank you for your generous donations throughout the years. The next Sunday
collection will be on 19th September when we would be grateful for towels,
large & small and even very old which can be cut up for floor cloths.
For further information about Fresh Start please contact Heather Shanks
(Tel 337 9582) or Margo Fraser (Tel 447 1043).
Volunteering
We always welcome anyone who would like to help. There
are also a number of ways that individuals might like to serve the homeless
- for example, through the ARK, Bethany Christian Trust, Edinburgh City
Mission (ECM), and Edinburgh Campaign & Services for Homeless People (ECSH). |
Help
the Homeless Group