Our Helping Hand Café provides a free meal, fun and socialising for those in our community who need a helping hand. Our guests are also offered a food parcel when they leave. During winter our church people cook up big pots of warming soup and we provide bread and a dessert to go with this. At other times some of us provide large servings of our favourite recipes to share. Local retailers sometimes provide us with food to cook or with items for the food parcels.

Our dedicated team of up to nine volunteers work to offer our guests not only food, but conversation and Christian love. Each person has their own role to play, from our manager Robert to those who cook, wash dishes, serve, set up and clear tables. We support each other when one of our guests needs a little more of our time to talk through an issue and we all enjoy the feeling of closeness in the café. One visitor said that he felt like this was “his big family” -  exactly the purpose of this ministry.

Volunteers meet at 11am each Tuesday morning in the chapel to pray for the Helping Hand Café and we open the church hall doors at 11.30 for guets to have coffee and a chat while waiting for the meal to be served at 12noon. We close meal service at 1pm.