SCM Basics Bank - Thank you so much! 

Basics Bank Volunteer Sign Up

Update from SCM - 9th April 2020


Dear Friends

22 days ago we told you we needed your help.

We told you that we needed 3 things: daytime volunteers, food and prayer

You have responded incredibly.

Volunteers
We have been overwhelmed by amazing, generous, selfless people offering to put themselves in harms way for the sake of strangers. We have a spreadsheet with 188 people offering to drive the van, lift crates, make up food parcels, do shopping for us and every other job we could want. We have only needed to contact a quarter of the people on that list, which means that most of you have not heard anything back from us. We are so sorry that we have not had time to call or message you. It has been so busy we couldn’t contact you all to let you know the situation and pass on HOW GRATEFUL we are for you coming forward. It has been a massive privilege to see God’s people mobilise and respond so quickly to those in need. Thank you all so much.

Food
We needed more food supplies. You have supplied more food supplies! By donating at the Basics Banks, the warehouse and our supporting supermarkets, by shopping for us at wholesalers, by ordering deliveries, by donating money for us to buy food with. Thank you so much.
Our food stocks are in a much healthier place now and we are getting steady donations in. We have been able to put hundreds of Easter Eggs in people’s food parcels, so that families can celebrate as normal this Easter.
In the next couple of weeks, we will be telling you how you can download a free foodbank app, where you can see in seconds exactly what food supplies we are short of. We will be available to update this daily and give you news updates as well. In the meantime, please keep an eye on our website for any new needs.
Please keep donating food when you can, on our website on the donate food page, there is a list of all of the regular food items we need and a map showing which supermarkets have their own donation points for us within the store itself.
https://southamptoncitymission.co.uk/basics-banks/donate-food

Prayer
We have felt your prayer support and give such thanks to God for giving us his Grace and blessings. None of our staff or their families have been sick. Those staff that have been working at home have been incredibly productive and useful despite not being in the office. There have always been enough key volunteers like Basics Bank supervisors and van drivers to keep operating and to keep training new volunteers.
We have been partnering with the council very closely and helping to shape the emergency response in our city. It is remarkable how central the Church is to so much of what happens in Southampton.
We have heard so many sad stories of people needing help these weeks; older couples running out of food and unable to leave their homes, single parents at home with young children and no food and no credit to phone for help, homeless individuals from distant cities being temporarily housed in Southampton budget hotels to get them off the streets but with no food and no friends. Please keep praying for God’s mercy, for provision for those on the margins and for his Church to keep stepping forward.
Thank you for standing with us sisters and brothers, pray for our city, remember the poor, stand in the gap, extend the Kingdom.

“The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never put it out.”

Blessings,
Duncan


25/03/20, 25/03/2020