Becky Atkins
Every Wednesday during term time a group of brilliant volunteers gather together at St Cuthman’s Church, situated at the heart of the Whitehawk estate, to run a community drop-in.
There are so many needs in the area but the aim of the drop-in is to offer debt help by sign-posting people to the work of CAP. In reality this takes time and since the summer the team have been building relationships, going out on the streets with sweets and hot chocolate, talking to people, praying for people and then where appropriate sign-posting them to the financial help they can access through CAP.
There have been numerous exciting conversations, people coming into the church for the first time in their lives, people being willing to be prayed for, and also those who have expressed interest in starting a journey to get out of debt. For me it is an incredible privilege spending time with these volunteers who have a genuine love for the people of Whitehawk and want to see lives turned around, not only to see them released from debt but far more importantly come to know Jesus and real freedom in their lives.
But that isn’t it – even more excitingly the drop-in is going to grow from the middle of March when St Cuthman’s is launching a food bank in partnership with the Trussell Trust. CAP will be one of the referral agencies and the idea is that during the drop-in on a Wednesday people will be able to access food from the food bank, talk to the team about getting out of debt with CAP’s help and have any benefit questions answered by another local charity. I’m really expectant about how God is going to grow this work on the estate and I look forward to being able to feed back many stories of lives impacted in the months to come.
We have also have a second drop-in centre situated at Holland Road Baptist Church in Hove. you can drop in at any time between 12.30 and 2.30pm and have a chat with one of our CAP advisers. It will be informal but confidential and we will even make you a cup of tea!