Community Projects

•    The SYDNI Centre.  Sydenham Neighbourhood Initiatives began as a project from St Mary’s Church, with the intentional aim of enabling it to become an independent community charity, fully involving members of the local community in its development and management.  St Mary’s still supports SYDNI financially and with volunteers, including the current Chair of Trustees (Mrs Mary Briggs).

•    PATHWAY Drug/alcohol/offender recovery.  The PATHWAY scheme helps people with unstable lifestyles, primarily but not exclusively related to drug/alcohol abuse and/or offending behaviour, to become stable.  We have assisted in helping over 20 people become completely free of substance/alcohol abuse and offending behaviour patterns, saving Leamington literally £millions that would have been lost through shoplifting, burglaries, methodone scripts, probation staffing, court cases, etc.  St Mary’s PATHWAY is a faith-based, mentoring scheme which has achieved the only independent quality standard kitemark for mentoring organisations in the country – that of Approved Provider Standard by the Home office approved Mentoring and Befriending Foundation.

•    HOPE.  The HOPE Project seeks to work with young people and/or families that are affected by instabilities, especially but not exclusively related to drug/alcohol abuse.  HOPE provides mentoring support to young people and wider support to the family.  The Project is ‘Working Towards’ Approved Provider Status, which we hope will be achieved by the end of 2008.

•    Financial Freedom.  The ‘Financial Freedom’ Project is a Debt Advice project designed to assist those on low incomes (as a rough guide, £10,000 a year or less) who have found themselves in serious financial difficulties.  In partnership with Christians Against Poverty (CAP) we are able to provide excellent Debt Advice and mentoring support through the process of dealing with debts.  

•    Homeless Outreach Team.  St Mary’s volunteers befriend homeless people living rough on the streets of Leamington.  The team’s main purpose is simply to befriend, but they will also try to identify people who want to change their circumstances and lifestyle, and who have the mental determination to achieve this, and recommend PATHWAY.

•    Sunday Lunches.  St Mary’s provides a Sunday lunch for those whom they have formed a relationship with ‘on the streets’.  This is not a ‘drop-in’ style meal, but an attempt to help those on the streets to integrate into a loving community of people at the same time as being fed, to help reduce isolation.  In order to protect those who are in the process of changing their lifestyles who also attend this meal, potential attendees must first meet with the vicar and be willing to undertake a full police check arranged by St Mary’s.

•    Life-skills DVDs.  We are currently producing DVDs on life-skills which will assist people in the areas of emotional health, budgeting, healthy eating, and relational skills, all designed for people on low incomes and/or with levels of instability.