A PROJECT established by a Worcester church to look out for disadvantaged families in the city will be rolled out across the country.
Worcester’s Vineyard church has made its mission to be a loving, caring community and helping the disadvantaged with its Growbaby project is one of the ways it is doing so.
More than 70 families, including the homeless and asylum seekers, have been helped by Growbaby since the church started the scheme in 2016
The aim is to provide good quality, new and second-hand baby clothes and equipment for children up to five-years-old for free. Volunteers from the church give items donated by the community to people who need them for their family regardless of income, background or faith.
Growbaby is a project gradually being rolled out at Vineyard Churches across the country and Worcester is seeing an increased number of families using it.
The scheme has been brought to life by Helen Merton and husband, David, senior pastors at Worcester Vineyard Church in the Horizon Community Centre on Midland Road.
“At the moment we run Growbaby once a month. We don’t see it just as a place to get the items the parents need but as a drop-in centre, where the children can play and mums and dads have chance to get together and chat over coffee and cake,” Helen said.
“It is open to anyone; you don’t have to be referred. Due to costs we can only run it once a month at the moment, but our long-term vision is to have our own building, where we can store everything and run Growbaby more often alongside other church activities and community activities.
“We have also been blown away by the generous donations of clothes and equipment we have received.
“We have been supported by Blakemore Trust, who have held collection points in their Spar shops and also given financial donations to help us with the costs of running Growbaby.
“Storage King, where we have a lock up have also been very supportive of Growbaby and Worcester Community Trust and WVC,” she added.
