The winter night shelters are now open until April 2020. In the Richmond Circuit the following churches will be hosting one night each week:
Sundays at St Marys, Ferry Road,Teddington
Mondays at St Elizabeths, The Vineyard, Richmond
Tuesdays at Vineyard Life Church, The Vineyard, Richmond
Wednesdays at All Saints, East Sheen Avenue, East Sheen
Thursdays at St John the Divine, Kew Road, Richmond
Fridays at Christ Church, Christ Church Road, East Sheen
Saturdays at St Matthias, Friars Stile Road, Richmond
St Michael and All Angels will host one night of the Hammersmith circuit. (A circuit is a group of 7 churches – close together in distance – who open their doors, on the same night every week, from October – April, each year offering the homeless a hot meal and a bed for the night.)
Please prayer for the men and women who will stay at the shelters and for the the volunteers and caseworkers that will help the guests to better lives.
If you would like to volunteer, please contact Megan Preston (megan@glassdoor.org.uk). For enquiries about donations and anything financial, please contact Ian Foster (ian@glassdoor.org.uk).
Individuals looking for shelter will be able to register online, by phone or by dropping into the Vineyard Community Centre. Visit www.glassdoor.org.uk/Pages/Category/shelter for more details.
If you are concerned about someone over the age of 18 that you have seen sleeping rough, you can send an alert via StreetLink who connect people sleeping rough with the local services that can support them.
Our first evening of the new night shelter season with Glass Door. Delicious butternut squash soup, lasagne, red cabbage and peas, lots of donated fresh bread, chocolate crispy cakes made by a local school and cakes made by one of our church families.
We welcomed 20 guests in from the cold, for a hot healthy meal and somewhere safe to sleep. Case workers are on hand to support the guests in their next steps.
Thank you all for showing God’s love in action
On Sunday 2nd February, St Mary Magdalene reported:
After the first 60 days of this Glass Door Homeless Charity season, 422 men and 88 women have been helped with a hot meal and a bed for the night – a 20% increase thanks to a 5th circuit.
Since June 2018 caseworkers have worked with 950 individuals and helped 114 into housing and 38 into employment.
Would you be able to provide any of the following for our Glass Door guests (travel size particularly wanted): deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes, face wipes, body wipes, sanitary towels, tampons, lip balm, hand cream, anti-bac gel. Please pop into the baskets at the back of St John’s or St Matthias or them into the Parish Office, Ormond Road. Thank you.
Waitrose have kindly donated oranges which have been made into delicious Marmalade, which went on sale at church this morning with profits going to Glass Door.
Updates from 23 March 2020
Vineyard Community Centre:
We are pleased to say that the government’s initiative to temporarily home rough sleepers in hotels has been initiated in Richmond and that the higher health risk of the Glassdoor winter nightshelter has now closed.
With others, we will continue to support the needs of this group with food and essentials as they now also have the possibility of staying indoors.
Our borough foodbank service continues and is very likely to increase in demand. We are in touch with our local authority to see how vulnerable groups can best be supported.
Glass Door:
Shelter guests now all moved to hotels! (Apart from a few guests in the Kensington and Chelsea circuit) Glass Door shelters shut so all guests and volunteers can safely go into self-isolation.
At our January 2020 Synod we agreed to give £2,000 to Glass Door to support the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons of their work in Richmond churches and their letter of thanks is below.