Faith in the Community is made up of two local Christian based groups developed and supported by the Roman Catholic parishes of St. Wulstans and St Edmunds and St Peters and St Davids which is Church of England. Since 2018 the volunteers supported by Canon Alf Hayes and Canon John Hall have developed a group to explore working together and merging their community projects into one provision.

 

These groups agreed to merge together to become Faith in the Community in August 2019 to provide support and assistance to the people of Fleetwood. The primary aim of the project is to support families and single people in distress as a result of redundancy, illness, debt, adverse changes or a delay in benefits including those who have been sanctioned. Other reasons for people needing to make use of the foodbank are homelessness and family breakdown.

 

Both projects started around the same time and are managed and supported by volunteers ...

​

Mustard Seed – was developed in 2012 to provide a hot meal and open house on a Monday evening to people in need within Fleetwood. This provision is delivered from St. Peter’s Church with an average of 50 people attending every Monday evening. Mustard Seed developed the Mustard Seed shop to provide weekly food parcels to people most in need. The shop is open 3 days per week 11am to 2 pm and provides assistance to over 250 people per week.

 

The Food Bank was developed with the assistance of St. Vincent De Paul Charity and was set up for the same reasons. The project delivers out of St, Edmunds Church on Melbourne Avenue in Fleetwood on a Wednesday morning and provides up to 35 food parcels per week based on family and individual needs and a place where people can sit and talk to other people.

 

The new service will be called The Pantry and operate from a purpose-built facility at Fleetwood Hospital from May 2020. It will run on a referral basis however a one-off self-referral will be accepted for people in crisis, this will be managed through an assessment of the customers' circumstances by the staff and volunteers within The Pantry.

 

Services like these make a positive difference to residents lives, residents like Mr S, this is his story ...

I am a retired man aged 73 years. I first came into contact with Mustard Seed Charity towards the end of 2017, after my son had returned to live with me. Due to his financial problems, which I help him with I also got into financial difficulties. Mustard Seed came to my rescue helping me with food to survive. I became a volunteer in March 2018 helping in the shop and at the church where a hot meal is provided every Monday night. This has led to me getting out and meeting people and given a purpose in life and something to look forward to each day. This has improved my health and general feeling of wellbeing and I hope I can continue as a volunteer for well into the future.