St. Francis Employability received a grant from the Foundation which has boosted their 5 Doors Down project over the Christmas holidays, supporting vulnerable people in Coventry.
The pandemic has affected the way St. Francis’ support their community. Usually, they’d have 50 volunteers to help run the community café, offering free breakfast and lunch to those in need.
We spoke to Joanna Jackson, Community Project Coordinator at St. Francis Employability:
“We run from a Church but we serve the community, embracing and welcoming everybody.
“It’s heart breaking that right now we can’t open the door to people, but even just having them come to the door and being able to give them something is really special.”
5 Doors Down started at the beginning of the pandemic, it’s a food mission project by St. Francis Employability. The concept is simple, residents are asked to look five doors down, either way, to ensure people are checked-up on and receive food if needed.
The £2,500 grant from the Foundation’s Coronavirus Resilience Fund helped them to continue this support over the festive period, that money was provided by Coventry Building Society.
Joanna continued:
“We did Christmas boxes for individuals and couples who would’ve been on their own on Christmas Day.
“We also did children’s boxes which they received each week of the Christmas holidays that contained activities, food for breakfast and lunch and snacks to keep them going over the holidays.”
There were a total of 33 Christmas boxes delivered to isolated people on Christmas day, 34 families received packs for their children and 102 children got two packs each over the holidays. Joanna continued:
“The children’s packs were on a collection basis, so we had children with their parents come to the door taking away these boxes full of snacks, food and selection boxes.
“They also received a present, it was really well received, everyone was so grateful!
“We wouldn’t have been able to do this project without funding from Heart of England, as we didn’t have the means to provide the amount of food we needed to support everyone.”
If you’d like to see our impact throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, click here.