With the festive season rapidly approaching, the food bank is as busy as ever. The holidays can be especially hard on families who are struggling, and the global pandemic is making it harder still.
As always, we rely on your donations. Items we most regularly require are listed here. In addition to these, please consider donating seasonal items that may be a treat for those in need, such as the following:
I’ve been volunteering for a couple of years with the Jesuit Refugee Service, which aims to support refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. The JRS, and support for refugees and immigrants in general, is one of the activities that our conference of the SVP focuses on.
I’m one of three people in our group who volunteer as “social visitors.” Before the lockdown, that meant regularly travelling out to the Immigration Detention Centres near Heathrow, Europe’s largest. There are two centres, called Harmondsworth and Colnbrook, where several hundred young men (and a very small number of women) are held indefinitely, often for several weeks or months, pending deportation or granting of asylum. They are usually alone, with no family or friends to visit them. My job is mostly to just talk with them and treat them as people, not as cases to be adjudicated.
As mentioned previously, the SVP Team is five years old next April. Our governance rules require that a new president needs to be in place by April and she or he will then appoint a new vice-president, treasurer and secretary. Those four will serve, please God, until April 2026.
Why not consider joining us and taking on one of these roles? Fresh faces and new outlooks have sustained us since 2016 so please do not be shy coming forward! Or, if you are not in a position to do so, then we ask you to please say a prayer for the team that a new team of officers will emerge in good time.
This Sunday we enter the new year in the church’s calendar as the beautiful and joyful season of Advent begins. What better time to think about your spiritual life’s ‘New Year’s Resolution’!
The SVP Team is always open to, and welcoming of, new members so why not consider joining as a gift to your spirit? If you would like to have a direct and positive impact on the life of a person in need, and to receive the gift of joy in return, then you will be making a great choice! Find a quiet moment, have a ponder, and just let the Holy Spirit bring you to the decision.
The Young Persons SVP Team have been busy again! Last Sunday, a number of them, accompanied by some adult SVP members, helped prepare and pack ‘Vinnie-Packs’ for the homeless in the UK.
Each winter, for the last 10 years, a small team of SVP members in the Westminster Diocese procure, pack and distribute 11,500 Vinnie-Packs throughout the UK. Each pack contains a woolie hat, a pair of woolen gloves, 2 pairs of socks, toothbrush, toothpaste and wet wipes and a pen and paper with some useful Helpline numbers. Our volunteers made up approx 500 packs on Sunday and these were then distributed, as part of a bigger load, by SVP volunteer drivers on Monday and Tuesday!