We became more and more aware that for children who receive free school meals during term time the school holidays mean they often don’t have access to up to two meals per day.  With tight budgets at home children were often going hungry or parents were skipping meals to make sure the children had enough.  We partnered with local Play Providers and small groups of volunteers make simple packed lunches that the Play workers could give out to children accessing Play.  This means children can easily access food themselves and there is no stigma as it is available to anyone who wants it.

This project runs in many different settings in the diocese.  For more information please email Sarah Wheat, Engagement Officer.

After discussions with the community and local groups we wanted to find ways to help people grow vegetables either at home or in raised beds in the church yard.

We applied for funding to purchase growing kits for those wanting to grow at home and organised a growing event so people could get advice, meet growers and ask questions.  We followed this up with other opportunities to meet and share and a Facebook page.

In another community it was more appropriate to have raised beds in the church yard to allow the childrens’ gardening groups and local people to come together and grow produce to share as well as the opportunity to reduce loneliness and be together.

For more information please contact Sarah Wheat, Engagement Officer sarahwheat@cinw.org.uk

Appropriate housing is an ongoing issue across the country and one way of churches making a difference in their community is to partner with Green Pastures.

Green Pastures can help a church, Mission Area or other group to purchase a house that is then rented out to people who are at risk of or are experiencing homelessness allowing them to have a safe, secure tenancy.  Green Pastures have a dream that the Church will end homelessness in the UK.  Not just by providing a home but supporting residents to develop skills and provide them with the tools they need to maintain a tenancy beyond the project.

For more information please contact Sarah Wheat, Engagement Officer sarahwheat@cinw.org.uk or visit Partnering with churches to end homelessness in the UK (greenpastures.net)

From a small seed, our Food Club in St Peter’s, Holywell has grown into a thriving community who support one another and is a place for both practical and spiritual support. The small contribution means this isn’t about ‘us’ doing charity for ‘them’ but about us all working together to help each other. This has also fed into Proclamation and Persuasion, as we’ve introduced an act of worship before the Food Club and this has led to people wanting to know more about what motivates our loving service.

For more information please contact Rev’d Dominic Cawdell

DominicCawdell@churchinwales.org.uk

Our project is a response to a concern for those in our communities struggling to buy food.

We have a small team of volunteers who buy, pack and deliver a week’s shopping every month to those struggling at this time. (Click on the photo opposite to watch a short film.)

After meeting with various agencies in our community we found that many families struggle to buy even the basic foods.

Local schools emailed families on free school meals to let them know what we are providing.

We aim to ensure that no-one in our community is without basic food, and we respond to emergency situations.

We have posters in prominent community areas and for those working with vulnerable families. A WhatApp for our volunteers and FaceBook page.

For more information please contact Rev’d Juliet Fraser  julietfraser@cinw.co.uk

We are a charity based in the Mold Mission Area. We support homeless persons in the local area in a shared accommodation. When we have a vacancy and if the person then meets our criteria, they will be offered a tenancy and then they pay rent and money for utilities. We have been open for nearly 3 years and have successfully moved some who have been in a period of chaos and uncertainty into their own properties. We work with Flintshire housing for referrals. This has been challenging during the pandemic. Homelessness is increasing and our reward is working to move people on when they begin to address the issues which have affected their lives often over many years.

For more information please contact Rev Kathy Stewart – Chair. kathy12oct@sky.com

Many people live so much of their lives online, we’ve made a real push in the Holywell and Greenfield Churches to make our social media attractive and engaging. Some simple tips and tricks we’ve learnt:

• Repetition is important
• Create engaging images (we use Canva to do this)
• Put all the key text in the post, don’t just photograph posters – this is difficult to engage with for a lot of people
• Regularity is so important – keep posting every day or every few days to maintain visibility.

For more information please contact. DominicCawdell@churchinwales.org.uk

Every day the secondary school children congregate at the bus stop opposite our church. Other pupils both primary and secondary walk past on their way to more local schools. We therefore open the church on a Wednesday morning to provide them with breakfast. Initially we have provided a Grab and Go breakfast taking out individually wrapped pain au chocolat, crepes, fruit and juice cartons, and inviting them to go into the church to pick up a hot drink. By the third week the children were going into the church to collect breakfast without needing to be invited. We hope as they feel welcomed in the building that they will take the time to sit and stay a while.

For more information please contact

RebeccaSparey-Taylor@cinw.org.uk

In the same way that a school holds an open day to show off all the things that they do, we decided to hold a church open day. 90% of people who attended have since attended another event or service in the following 2 months. We had displays of wedding dresses along with info on weddings in church and the wedding registers, a baptism display with info on how to book a baptism, info on all our activities such as book club, toddler services, family services, Christmas services and events. We held it when the church was decorated for harvest and held a find the harvest mice competition.

For more information please contact RebeccaSparey-Taylor@cinw.org.uk

Held on a farm in the hills above Llansannan. Families were greeted by live reindeer and challenged to find the ‘elves on the shelf’ hiding in a Christmas forest of snowy trees! They could sit on Santa’s sleigh, have pictures taken with the nativity figures, and hear ‘Twas the Night before Christmas’. There was a Christmas buffet, carol singing and a Christmas message. Santa’s appearance was hugely anticipated, and he was nearly knocked over by excited children! Every child went home with a present. An amazing team worked hard to put on this event which was fully funded to ensure that a whole family ticket was only £5. Finances should not be a barrier to having an amazing Christmas experience and we hope families created some very special memories.

For more information please contact Esther Andrews   EstherAndrews@cinw.org.uk

Happy Saturdays.

This project came from a challenge from a mum in the community asking if our sign saying “Everyone is Welcome” was true for families with special needs.  We took up the challenge, I have many years of experience of working with young people with additional needs and we have a volunteer who has a wealth of experience in this area too.  One Saturday per month for an hour in the afternoon (afternoons take the pressure off being ready and out in the morning) we offer a session for anyone with special needs and their families to come and join us for craft, storytelling and music.  Its an opportunity for expression for them and we go with what works for them.

For more information please contact:  Rev Sarah Hildreth-Osborn email SarahHildreth-Osborn@churchinwales.org.uk or phone 01492 640032 

We open our church St Gwynog’s in Aberafesp the first Saturday of the month from 10am – 12 noon as a Fair Trade Café.  We serve Fair Trade drinks and home made cakes made with as many Fair Trade ingredients as possible.  We offer waiter/waitress service so that people feel cared for and that they have had a nice morning out.  We get between 30 -50 people attending, many of them from the local community as it is a good chance to get together and socialise.  We put Fair Trade catalogues out and can take orders from the customers as we have a Trade Craft account and by ordering together they don’t pay postage (on orders over £50).  We donate the proceeds from the cafe to local charities and have donated about £5000 since we started in 2015.

You can watch a film about the cafe here: https://youtu.be/1JopKPiEiEU

For further information please contact Pam on  pam.churchft@gmail.com