Our thanks are extended to the The Lions Club of Leigh-on-Sea for their donation to the work of Leigh Road Baptist Church in the community. The recent donation will go directly to help the following projects of the church and our community coffee house Oasis.
Kay Large, Leigh-on-Sea Lions Community Committee Chairman said about the donation, “We were delighted to be able to help the community projects of Leigh Road Baptist Church in this way. As Leigh-on-Sea Lions we are about serving our community and those in need, these church projects are certainly achieving that.”
The specific projects that will benefit are Oasis Suspended Meals and Coffees. This scheme at Oasis Coffee House, 189 Leigh Road, Leigh-on-Sea allows customers to buy a meal/coffee for someone experiencing food poverty or homelessness in the Southend-on-Sea area. Vouchers and gifts are issued to a range of local charities, such as foodbanks and those who work with homeless and vulnerably housed people. These vouchers can be redeemed at Oasis Coffee House. We also donate to churches that provide meals for homeless people, as well as offering free meals at our discretion to people we meet that need them.
Ruth Fordham co-manager at Oasis said, “Our thanks to the Lions Club of Leigh-on-Sea, theirs and all donations are fantastic. They have allowed us to feed hungry homeless people as the weather has turned colder. Just today we have fed 5 people who really value the opportunity for a hot meal and a place in the warm for a while – it means so much to them – thank you!”
The church is also part of Christians Against Poverty (CAP) and together we are passionate about releasing people in our area and nation from a life sentence of debt, poverty and their causes. Through CAP services, which are run by volunteers from the Church we are tackling poverty head on. We’re currently involved in providing The CAP Money Course a free course that teaches budgeting skills and a simple, cash-based system that works. In just a few weeks, it enables participants to get to grips with their finances so they can budget, save and prevent debt – details of the latest and nearest course can be found on the dedicated website
Alan Cook (pictured 2nd right) CAP Money Coach was very thankful, “Any donations allow us to freely extend the reach of our CAP Money Course service. We are soon to start a new course at Blenheim Children’s Centre and are currently visiting a prison to help offenders get their lives back on track”, he added, “We recently received the following feedback from a client, “I’ve learned lots about my spending and life on the CAP Money Course. It really is life changing finding solutions to becoming debt free – thank you!”
Finally people from across the area were enabled by the Leigh-on-Sea Lions donation to provide gifts to children in poverty abroad through the Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Appeal that the church is a collection depot for. The Lions enabled us to purchase 200 pre-printed Christmas shoeboxes to give away to anyone who wanted to fill a box to donate. This worked! As in the end over 698 Christmas Shoeboxes went from the church to delight and bring happiness to children around the world including places like Iraq.
Here’s a short film about the journey of some of the Shoeboxes the people of Leigh-on-Sea and across the area packed and donated. Thank you!
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