Instead of paying for refreshments after Meeting for Worship on Sundays, Friends and visitors contribute towards Ben’s Centre, which has been providing a day service to Sheffield’s street drinkers for over 10 years. The project provides a “damp” day service to street drinkers, some of the most vulnerable and excluded citizens of Sheffield, and as such is unique in its provision.

Wendy Bates, project manager at Bens writes;
‘Each donation we receive is a lifeline to our small organisation and not only contributes to sustaining our services for vulnerable street drinkers in the city of Sheffield, but also gives us great encouragement that people and communities around us are willing to offer their time, gifts and support. We have not had the greatest starts to 2011. We came back from our Christmas break to find our building had been flooded on both floors and 50% of our false ceilings had fallen down. However, some of our clients have joined in and helped us and miraculously we managed to re-open the project within 10 days. Our blog tells more of the story with added photos (which you can find at benscentre.wordpress.com.)’

In addition to supporting Bens Centre, donations collected at our Wednesday lunchtime Meeting for Worship are sent to HARC. HARC (Homeless And Rootless at Christmas) is a Sheffield based charity committed to providing a safe and warm day shelter, open to all homeless and rootless vulnerable men and women between Christmas Eve and New Years Day every year.