Help us provide a Safe Haven

TALBOT Lane Methodist Church, across the road from the Town Hall, is working in conjunction with Rotherham Street Pastors to create a Safe Haven for vulnerable people.

The Haven is situated inside the church’s vestibule, opening onto the street outside. Operation Safe Haven will be active from October 30 onwards; Halloween will be the order of the day on the first opening!

Initially, half a dozen volunteers will give their time during the period from Friday night at 10pm to Saturday at 4 m, which is when the Street Pastor team patrols the town centre. It is hoped to build up volunteer numbers as the project develops.

This Safe Haven will provide short-term support for the kind of vulnerable people occasionally found by the Pastors.

The members of the Safe Haven team already have a couple of infra-red heaters, a handful of blankets, together with initial supplies of tea, coffee, milk and sugar, and hot chocolate powder together with insulated cups, but more will be needed as time goes on so all and any donations are welcome from the town’s sympathetic supporters, and this is where you and your friends could help.

Could you provide any of the following items, please? Instant coffee; tea-bags; powdered chocolate to make drinks with water rather than milk; one kilo bags of sugar; storage containers with lids for these items, from which they can serve; disposable plastic or polystyrene cups; spoons; rubbish disposal bags; paper towels; sick-bags; sanitizers; any easily cleanable chair, possibly similar to plastic garden chairs; buckets and mops.

Once a vulnerable person is brought to us, we will provide them with hot drinks and contact someone on their behalf, possibly a relative, to come and collect them. If they are capable of making their own way home later in the morning, then we’ll be happy for them to do that, our job providing a Safe Haven in the short term is then completed.

We shall never forget, of course, that once a vulnerable person is with us in the Safe Haven we owe him or her duty of care, and provide that as a matter of course. If you can help us in any way, then please get in touch.

This initiative is yet another way in which Rotherham shows that it has a caring Christian community ready to help vulnerable people, this time spearheaded by the Rotherham Methodist Circuit.

Barrie Thomas, Rotherham Methodist town centre Chaplain (tel 01709 532203)