The Link project

Shirehampton Baptist Church is located in North West Bristol, within a local community of about 11000 people. The area has many needs and the church has a vision to reach out to its local community to help those in need, in the best way it can. There is a lack of local amenities and we want to make the church building more accessible to local people. The Link project is designed to help us improve our links with our local community by targetting help specifically to those in particular need, be they young people, young families, vulnerable adults or the elderly. The name was chosen because the project is focussed on providing a physical link between two buildings (church and church hall), joining them together to form one complete complex, thus making it much more adaptable for local purposes. The work is about the halfway stage - the buildings are joined, but further expansion is planned to enhance facilities and make the buildings more adaptable for various needs - large rooms for mums and tots groups, youth clubs and so on, and smaller rooms for small group work e.g. Courses (parenting, marriage, Alpha, Money management, religious knowledge and so on), Craftwork, Social groups for the elderly. We also plan to build a small prayer and counselling room to focus help for individuals at times of great personal stress. New toilet facilities will be provided to accommodate increased use of the building and new ramps, inside and out, will improve access for disabled folk. Our new kitchen facility will enable us to offer excellent catering facilities in support of such groups, as well as offering a drop-in centre for tea, coffee and light meals during the day. Funds will be directed in accordance with the wishes of the giver, either generally towards the overall costs of the project, or specifically towards the building work, the provision of furniture and equipment for particular age groups or purposes. We have raised over £100,000 of our £200,000 target largely from donations of folk connected with the church, and are now inviting other individuals and charities to join with us in seeing the vision come to reality.