St Mary Redcliffe Community Team

At St Mary Redcliffe Church, we are passionate about making a difference within our parish community.

We have employed various community-focused staff to support how we do this. They work with the congregation, local residents and organisations, taking an asset-based community development approach to seek new ways to improve community connections and involvement across the whole Redcliffe neighbourhood.

Our engagement with the community is motivated by faith and the call to love our neighbour.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have been working alongside local organisations to ensure that people living in Redcliffe are connected to support through this tough season.

We have established the ‘Redcliffe Emergency Foodbank’ in partnership with North Bristol Foodbank and Faithspace community centre, to provide food and care for individuals and families facing financial crisis.

In addition, volunteers from the church have been paired with local people to provide telephone befriending support via a weekly phone call.

The Redcliffe Community Pop-Up is a new facility, opened in November, led by us and involving partner organisations that will reach all sections of the community. The building on Redcliffe Hill is a drop-in space, and will be offering a range of support as it develops, including:

• a local, personalised information, advice and guidance service
• activity packs for children and families
• a technology library that will be able to lend laptops and provide internet for those without
• a befriending/mentoring service for young people and the elderly
• mental health training for local community workers and volunteers.

We are spending time and money specifically targeting people who are at high risk from COVID-19, such as the elderly and BAME communities. We also know sections of the community are already facing challenges due to lockdown measures (e.g. large families, self-employed, young people etc.) and have designed our response to meet their support needs.

We will create a welcoming space so people feel confident they are listened too, that their voices can be heard as well as getting involved in community life and making a difference where they live.

Our tree forms part of the window display in the Redcliffe Community Pop-Up, and invites visitors to answer the question ‘What makes you happy?’

Find out more about the Pop-Up using the links below:

www.facebook.com/redcliffepopup
www.twitter.com/redcliffepopup



For more information about our community development work, visit www.stmaryredcliffe.co.uk/community