For many, opening up a newspaper or turning on the television to a news channel has not been a pleasant experience recently. Instability and uncertainty seem to be all around us right now, especially in our local communities. The plight of many has not gone unnoticed by the Universal Church and we have seen first-hand through our work in the local communities the impact the current social and financial climate is having on people.
With many struggling to cope physically and mentally, we focused our outreach work to support the community through initiatives such as the 5Alive Campaign. This has been our direct response to the needs of the local community since the pandemic, but as the demand has increased, we have continued to maintain and expand on these projects.
The 5Alive! Initiative consists of five separate projects— a 24hr-helpline; Soup Kitchens and Food Banks that serve hot meals, provide emergency groceries; the “Night Angels” project, which involves going to the streets at night to provide basic essentials, hot soup and food parcels to rough sleepers; and lastly the Give Warmth Appeal, which extends aid not only to those sleeping rough, but to patients and children in hospitals and residential homes, inmates and their families and health care professionals, through gift-giving.
We received great support last year, and this has enabled us to continue to open more food banks in the last 12 months; we now have a total of 14 across the country and 8 further soup kitchens now welcoming more than 4,000 visits every month. Your help has enabled us to inaugurate two new centres as well as the Universal Access Point, a community hub to support victims of domestic violence, the homeless and anyone in need of emergency assistance with food and/or shelter.
Our aim is to expand our initiatives through our other community groups, hence the name of our theme for this year – 5Alive+
The funds raised will help support the general work of the UCKG HelpCentre, and will also help keep the projects mentioned above alive!
Help us to help others by keeping this work going through a donation towards this cause.
