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Swansea Church Supports its Community During COVID-19

Swansea Church Supports its Community During COVID-19

Cathy Boldeau

Over the past week, the Swansea community hub, has been extremely busy providing meals for the most vulnerable people in its region as well as supporting the local NHS staff.   Food insecurity is one of the challenges in the area and the volunteers have been working with the local council, through one of their social workers and in partnership with another church charity has provided over 140 meals this past week. 

Rafael Luz, local church pastor of the Swansea Seventh-day Adventist church, where the hub is situated stated, "due to the increasing needs in the community, we have been asked if it would be possible to double the number of meals to around 300.  We are working with the local council to see if this can be a possibility in the coming weeks," 

Research from the Food Foundation in April revealed that 1.5 million people in Britain are going a whole day without food on any given day due to having no money or access to food, the Guardian reported. In the same survey, which was conducted by YouGov, some 3 million people said they were in a household where someone had been forced to skip meals. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/covid-19-food-poverty-rising-in-uk/

"I don’t think that any of us could have imagined at the start of the year, that food security could be under threat for so many people here in the UK," said Bert Smit, CEO of ADRA-UK.  "It really saddens me to know that so many people are going hungry every day or don’t have access to a hot meal", he continued.  "However, I am humbled and heartened by the work of the volunteers throughout the community hubs up and down the country that ADRA-UK are committed to support over the next 18 months and beyond, through their I AM Urban initiative."

If you would like to support the work of community hubs at local Seventh-day Adventist churches in the UK, please donate at www.adra.org.uk. Or if you would like more information about the work of the hubs and if you can support in some other way, please contact urban@adra.org.uk.