THE C3 CHURCH
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Mission Statement
Our objectives are to help alleviate poverty, reduce isolation, strengthen community and, build community capacity. We believe that through community initiatives, lives are being changed and people are experiencing acceptance and love on a regular basis.
About This Cause
C3 Impact is the social action department within The C3 Church which has locations in Cambridge, Bury St Edmunds and Colchester. The Abbey Field Centre in Colchester is C3’s newest site and our volunteers trained for a year to launch C3 Impact’s community initiatives in the Autumn of 2021. We currently provide food on a Wednesday in the form of a community market, coffee shop, school uniform exchange and a wellbeing centre. There is such a need in the area and the Abbey Field Centre is a perfect building being in the heart of a large community. We have been developing relationships with local schools and want to increase working with families; we have been liaising with local councillors, holiday hunger clubs, foodbank, the local medical centre, school uniform exchange and community support network groups. We are also building connections with the Essex integration support, Colchester Borough Council and Essex County Council. CAP Debt support will be using the offices in the building to help people move out of debt and equip them with tools to manage money with confidence. Our vision is to open daily to the public, offering: - Community Fridges/Freezers: fresh and frozen food (open to all: 24/7, restocked daily using surplus food collected from local supermarkets) - Community Food Truck: hot meals (open to all: every Friday) offering relational and signposting support to those in need. - Community Market: 4 bags of food and produce for a nominal fee (open to those in financial crisis as a result of the pandemic: increasing to twice weekly) We would also like to provide ‘how to cook on a budget’ teaching, recipes and advice on how to cook simple nutritional meals. Our focus is to increase support for people accessing the food we provide, helping our guests address the root causes of their inability to feed themselves and their families especially those who are in the Covid 19 recovery category. We have already been offering on-line courses that give best practice advice in key areas: Money Course, Finding Employment and Mental Wellbeing, but we have capacity to increase the number of people we are supporting. We plan to add a Drop-in facility to offer a friendly meeting place: providing seating, hot/cold drinks and food/snacks, welcoming everyone and being inclusive of everyone, building confidence and self-worth. C3 Impact will continue training volunteers (currently 25 people) to regularly meet with those using our services to develop relationships and help identify the causes of their financial crisis. Our volunteers will offer to accompany those wanting to attend a course or sit with them at our Advice Hubs, befriending those in need and supporting them access: - Emotional Wellbeing Courses (such as ‘Kintsugi Hope’ and C3’s ‘RISE’ course: empowering women to overcome emotional and mental barriers to fulfil their potential) - Parenting Courses to motivate parents gain confidence, skills, knowledge and understanding how to build a strong and positive family life - Other wellbeing courses, including: marriage support, coping with bereavement and divorce recovery We will survey guests to monitor course take up and attendance as well as request narrative feedback on how users have felt about the engagement with C3 Impact; this will help us improve and further develop our social care programme as we seek to support the needs of local people and build healthy communities.