Hello! It’s Dub Everitt here, Outreach Pastor at Welcome Church, and I’m excited to be guest-writing Steve’s blog this week!

I want to update you on the renovation of our new building – the ‘Church Gate’ office block – and invite you to take action today to help make a huge difference in our community.

An Incredible Journey So Far

Many of you played a vital role in our gift days in November 2023 and June 2024, helping us raise an incredible £2 million toward the £3 million purchase of Church Gate, which we completed (with the help of a mortgage!) in May 2024. Of the money given so far, £400,000 has been set aside towards the renovation costs.

One of the key ways we’ll use this space is to launch a Community Grocery – a project that will provide affordable food and essential support services to those who need it most.

What Is A Community Grocery?

A Community Grocery is a ‘social supermarket’ designed to help families struggling with the cost of living. It’s an initiative founded by The Message Trust in Manchester, offering deeply discounted food while preserving dignity and choice for members, who can select the items they need to best support themselves.

For just £5 per year, people can sign up for membership, and then they can shop for between £5 and £12.50 a week, saving up to £50 per week—that’s £2,500 a year!

But it’s more than just groceries. Members can also connect to our other initiatives such as debt advice, money coaching, cooking courses, mental health & wellbeing groups, job clubs, and more. In 2024, we helped 169 individuals through these services, and this new space will allow us to expand our impact to reach 1,000 grocery members in our first year.

This is a project that will change lives in our community.

Where Are We Now?

We’ve been working closely with our architects, Plan A – the same team who were behind the design of our chapel, which we opened in 2020. The renovation plans for Church Gate are now complete, and the costs for redevelopment and for fitting out the building have been estimated at £1.2 million.

We have the first £400,000, and we’re now working hard to secure the remaining £800,000 through grants. If all goes to plan, we’ll start construction in June or July and open the doors before the end of the year.

It’s Time To Ask For Your Support!

We recently submitted our first grant application to a Christian Grant Funder, and the feedback was amazing:

“Hi Dub, just to let you know I’ve read your draft and it’s EXCELLENT! Honestly, brilliant. I have no doubt our trustees will want to make a contribution. I wanted to congratulate you on such a well-planned project that is clearly going to change (and probably save) lives.”

This funder will confirm their decision by mid-February, so let’s be praying for a positive outcome!

The largest grant we’re applying for is £497,000 from Your Fund Surrey, part of Surrey County Council. We’ve had great conversations with their team, and we’re preparing our application ahead of the February 28th deadline.

But we now need your help to get it across the line.

Here’s Your Call To Action!

To help our application to succeed, we need to show strong local support – and that’s where YOU come in. We are now looking to gain at least 1,000 comments on Surrey County Council’s “Have Your Say” webpage to demonstrate how much our community supports this project.

At the time of writing, we have 692 comments, which means we still need 308 more.

Can you take 2 minutes to help?

If so, it’s very quick and easy to do, and fairly self-explanatory. Here are the four steps:

1. Click on this link to go through to the Have Your Say webpage

2. Hit the big smiley face on the page.

3. Leave a short comment about why you support the Community Grocery and any other comments you may want to make, and then add your email address when prompted to do so

4. Check your e-mails for a link to click on to confirm that the comments you made are yours. If the link doesn’t arrive do check your junk box too

That’s it—you’ll be done before your kettle boils!

Your endorsement, along with others, could help to secure nearly £500,000 to support people in need across our town.

One Last Thing: Please Spread the Word!

Once you’ve shared your comment, please pass the link to the Have Your Say webpage on to others: to your friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, or anyone who cares about making a difference in our community. Please feel free to share it on your social media feeds too.

The more people we can get behind this, the greater the impact we can have together.

Thanks in advance for all your help

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