I am not quite sure when one stops saying, ‘Happy New Year’, but as I haven’t wished you Happy New Year as yet and we are now nearly at the end of January already, Happy New Year!!!
We are so grateful for the ways in which so many of you supported Soul Food last year; we have been so humbled by the generous ways in which you have stepped into the story we are living of tables being set in churches and community spaces across the city, that offer genuine hospitality and life giving community and support to those dealing with homelessness, food poverty, loneliness and isolation.
As a new charity, we are completely dependent on the financial support of supporters and we can genuinely testify to the right amounts of money coming in at the right times over the past year. This has been so encouraging. And if I could just thank those of you who sent us donations throughout December. We were really blown away by your generosity.
In an earlier blog we wrote of how we are hoping to develop Soul Food further and the regular, monthly donations of supporters – Soul Foodies – really helps us to do this. At the moment we are working with a number of churches operating in areas of deprivation and we would like to be able to support their Soul Food meals much more significantly. All of the churches commit to raising a lot of the money needed for their meals but extra support is valued hugely, especially as they are often confronted with huge amounts of need in their neighbourhoods. Our Soul Food Families meal began just before Christmas. Very slowly, families are beginning to come along. They carry sobering stories of hunger, sanctioned benefits, threats of homelessness and food bank reliance. These stories are repeated our beautiful city over and are the stories heard around Soul Food tables...
In the blog highlighted above, we wrote to say that we have set an initial target of 200 donors giving £10 a month. Thank you to those of you who have signed up for this already – many of you giving more than £10.
Feeling audacious, we wondered if it would be possible to recruit 31 new Soul Foodies by the 28th February 2020. That is one person a day!! 31 people giving £10 a month.
To all those of you who sign up to do this, we will send one of our beautiful ‘Practice Hospitality’ prints and we will also enter you into a draw on the 1st March for the chance to win 6 months worth of books that have been important and inspirational to us as a Soul Food team. A new book will be sent to you on the 1st of every month. (This is being funded privately – not through Soul Food funds!)
If this could be something that you decide to do this New Year, please click on this link .
If you would like more information, please do not hesitate to get in touch. Also, if your church would like to know more about Soul Food and setting tables of hope and hospitality in your communities, we would love to come along and speak! Please, just get in touch!
This comes with our kindest regards. We look forward to walking through 2020 alongside you.
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