Church opens its doors for community lunches

Guernsey’s Town Church is opening its doors to everyone over the next few Tuesday lunchtimes, promising a warm space and homemade food to all who want to go along.

The idea came from Martin Priest (pictured top) who is a member of the Church congregation.

He said warmth, shelter, sustenance, and company are available to all while they test demand for the initiative.

If it proves popular it will continue in the new year too.

Pictured: Minestrone and Leek and Potato soup were available this week.

“We thought it would be a nice thing to do to open the church to people who need warmth, shelter, and sustenance in the winter. We get a lot of people in here and we have free tea, coffee, biscuits, and things all the time and it’s surprising how many people do come in. That’s available all the time, but on Tuesdays we’ll be offering soup, cake, tea, and coffee.”

The Church will be closed after Christmas for repair works, but if the initiative proves popular Mr Priest said it will return early next year.

“I’m hoping more will come, including members of the congregation, and as word gets round over the next few weeks we’ll get more people coming in.”

He said you don’t need to be a member of the congregation, or have any affiliation to the Town Church to be welcomed for lunch.

“It’s open to absolutely everybody, there are no restrictions whatsoever,” he said.

“We’ll see how it goes, but if it goes well we’ll do it again during February and March, during the winter months.”

Pictured: Homemade cakes were available too.

Wendy Lane was among the people present for the first community lunch at the Town Church this week.

She and her husband are regular attendees at the church. As he was busy she decided to go along for some soup and cake.

“I thought it was a lovely idea, and I think it could catch on,” she said.

“The Town Church is a very open community of people, and I do recognise that many of them work so they don’t always get a chance to support things like this but I think we should give it a chance and if it grows by number, with people saying ‘will you come?’ that would be really helpful.”