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Thank you to everyone who supported our fundraising shop, known as ‘Gifted’, last weekend. We hope you found what you were looking for. If you didn’t, please ask us and we’ll do our best to source it.

With exams coming to an end and school holidays looming, if any young people would like to take up volunteering, ask us about it. Volunteering is a great character-building opportunity and will strengthen any personal statement you may need to write in the future. Have a think, and if the idea grabs you, please get in touch with any of us.

This Sunday is the first of the month, which is when we open our SVP shop, known as “Gifted”. We will be running Gifted before and after all masses this weekend and we hope you’ll pop along to take a look. If you can’t see the item you have in mind then just have a chat with us and we’ll try and source it for you.

And, given that we are still in Volunteers’ Week, if you would like to help us run Gifted then you can have a chat about that with us also!

This coming week is the U.K.’s annual Volunteers’ Week, so please keep all volunteers in your thoughts and prayers. In our parish, in particular, we have an amazing range of SVP volunteers including the adult team, the B-Attitudes team (aged 11-18) and the Mini-Vinnies Team at St. Swithun Wells (primary school age). This list is just a subset of all the volunteers that help run the parish!

Volunteering has many, many benefits. For young people with long summer holidays ahead, it can give real-life, character-forming opportunities. If anyone is interested in joining any of the SVP teams, please don’t hesitate to contact us!

Blessed Frederic Ozanam, when he founded the SVP in 1833, had a tremendous empathy with those less fortunate than himself. From those very early days in the life of the SVP, he focused on visiting the needy in their homes, bringing food and companionship.

SVP home visits to the lonely spring from this tradition and your SVP team, known as a ‘Conference’, tries it’s best to continue this tradition. A large number of people continue to suffer from loneliness and this is the case right across the age range.

Our SVP group, formally called a ‘Conference’, was 10 years old in April! This means that some of our earliest workstreams, such as the food bank, are also 10 years old! Need is ever-present in our society and we see this each Saturday at the food bank. Without your ongoing support we could not have kept the food bank open and we are ever grateful for this. Our supplies are particularly challenged at the moment and, for the first time in our 10 years, we are having to send our clients away empty handed, directing them to other help.