Redeemer Church aim to work for the good of the mental, emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing of Birmingham. They were awarded £2,000 from the Coronavirus Resilience Fund to support the continuation of their Citizen Enablement Fund.
The Citizen Enablement Fund was set up to provide essential household equipment and food parcels for those who have lost income or been made redundant as a result of the pandemic. It also provided tablets to support those home-schooling and to keep elderly people connected. Hannah Fielder, Community Engagement Officer at Redeemer Church, explained:
“We’re based in Northfield where there is a huge amount of deprivation and isolation. We’ve always done quite a bit in the community but when the pandemic first hit we knew our area would be hit harder with many people becoming redundant from low-paid jobs and left vulnerable.
“So we sourced grant funding to support our Citizen Enablement Fund to support those who had lost their jobs over of the pandemic. This meant people could make applications to this fund to receive money for things like white goods and fuel.
“When you’re in poverty very often you don’t get to choose the items you’re given, so it’s nice to give people the option to choose what they want.
“There’s need everywhere but the families who were made redundant during the pandemic, their income dramatically dropped and didn’t know what support was out there.”
Hannah shared a story of one of the families they supported over the pandemic:
“There’s a mother of three who lives on the estate who was made redundant at the start of the pandemic when she was 28 weeks pregnant at the time. She was absolutely mortified to be in that position because she’d never not worked and doesn’t like to ask for help.
“One of her neighbours told her about us and so she approached us for fuel vouchers, when we got to know her a little bit and when Christmas came around we gave her a Love2Shop voucher to buy presents for her children.
“It was so sweet because she was so grateful saying ‘oh my word I never ask for help from anyone, I can’t believe you’ve given us this money, it will make such a difference’ which was just lovely.
“My heart goes out to these families because they’ve always worked and hate asking for help but needed it the most during these awful times.”
The funding from the Foundation has also helped individuals’ and families’ emotional and mental wellbeing during the pandemic. The support has particularly helped Redeemer Church to keep the community connected through activities such as wellbeing support groups, online events, running clubs and coffee mornings and continues to positively impact the citizens in the area.
If you’d like to apply for funding please view our Available Grants here.