Hours of Kindness
Collated by Fritha Washington, HOPE
Right across the year we encouraged churches to think about their acts of service as clocking up ‘hours of kindness’ to their communities. There were some pretty imaginative ways that people chose to be a blessing. Check these out:
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Activity
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Who has done it?
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Painting the children’s equipment at five local parks.
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St James’, Southam
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A ‘Street Cafe' in front of a church, offering an afternoon for families with free refreshment, food and drink, kids’ games and activities, colouring, paddling pools and face painting.
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St Paul's Church Hainault
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Breakfast, shower, laundry and 'new' second hand clothes for homeless people in Doncaster on a weekly basis.
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Bread of Life Breakfast Service, Hall Gate United Reformed Church in Doncaster
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Various 'Practical Actions' for people who needed them such as lifts to hospitals, gardening, hanging curtains and house cleaning.
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St James’, Southam
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Volunteers made greetings cards (such as birthdays, Mothering Sunday, etc.) for the prison chaplain to give to prisoners so that they could send them to family and friends.
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Upton by Chester United Reformed Church, Chester
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Refurbishing football training areas for the local community
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Seacombe United Reformed Church, Wallasey, Merseyside
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Painting the fence at Sandbach Community Primary School in Cheshire.
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CTS Sandbach/Sandbach Baptist Church
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Photography studio with free photos at Prestwich carnival.
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St Paul’s, Kersal, Salford
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Young people set up a stall outside the church and gave away food, drink and things they had made like bookmarks.
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St John's Church, Charlesworth, Derbyshire
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Jennie and Claire asked their churches to donate beauty products (shower gel, bath foam, make up, perfume, moisturiser, etc.) after Christmas. Then a group of five friends joined them into gift bags to make pamper packs. They made 120 complete bags and also ribbon wrapped children's clothes which they donated to two local women's refuges to help women when they first come to the refuge.
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Jennie Frost and Claire Dean from All Saint's Marple and Heaton Moor Evangelical Church in Stockport
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Bike clinic
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Disley, Cheshire
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An 'ice the biscuit' stall was held at Intag Summer Festival. People were invited to come and ice a hand-made biscuit and take it away (all for free) and were given bookmarks advertising all four churches in the Ingol area.
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Ingol Methodist Church, St Margaret's and Holy Family in Ingol
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Drinks were served to thousands of cyclists on London to Brighton bike ride.
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Turners Hill Free Church, Sussex
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Breakfast was delivered to 60+ market stallholders in Frodsham market, Cheshire.
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Main Street Community Church and others.
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Baked cakes for a cake sale as a fundraiser to purchase paint, etc. for decorating specific homes of refugees and others in need.
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Members of Mrs. I. Smith's and Mrs. L. Wooldridge's small group in Crawley
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110 young people cleaned six beaches in Newquay for a day and then provided a free community barbeque.
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Love Cornwall, Newquay.
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A group worked with local police providing hot drinks in the town centre at night.
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Frome, Somerset
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Car marshalling, litter picking and clearing up at a music festival.
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Loughborough churches, students
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Handing out sweets to students revising for exams.
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Loughborough churches, students
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Handing out cream eggs around school.
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Gordano Christian Union, Bristol
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Tags: bike clinic, biscuits, breakfast, cards, children, children's equipment, clean beach, cleaning, community, crafts, easter egg, face painting, free, free gift, games, gardening, homeless, hot drinks, hours of kindness, lifts, litter pick, older people, painting, parks, personal products, photographs, prison, prisoners, refreshments, refurbish, serve community, social action, street cafe, women's refuge
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