Harvest Festival 2019

Harvest is a wonderful community moment when we celebrate how God ‘crowns the year with goodness and gives us the fruits of the earth in their season’.  As always, we’re looking forward to welcoming teachers, parents and pupils from Western Primary School – and especially the choir – on Sunday 6 October at 9.30 am.

We will be collecting non-perishable gifts that day, to be shared between:

• Winchester Churches’ Nightshelter – providing a safe and caring temporary home, and specialist support to enable people to escape homelessness and rebuild their lives
• Trinity Winchester – a daytime drop-in centre for people who are homeless or suffering social deprivation, offering life-changing opportunities
• the Basics Bank, Bar End – supporting families and individuals on low incomes with emergency food and clothing.

Harvest Festival provides the Nightshelter with an invaluable opportunity to replenish its food stocks for the year ahead, so residents can receive breakfast and a hot cooked evening meal every day of the year. The donations also enable residents at the Nightshelter to do their personal laundry and the accommodation to be cleaned.

Items that will be particularly helpful this year

Food and drink: instant coffee, soft drinks, sugar, biscuits, rice (500 g or 1 kg), tinned meatballs/minced beef and onion, tinned spaghetti/ravioli, tinned vegetables, gravy granules, stock cubes, marmite, tinned fruit (no prunes or grapefruit), tinned custard, rice pudding, healthy cereals (no pasta, porridge or tea, please)

Housekeeping items: kitchen roll, loo rolls, toilet cleaner, anti-bacterial spray and wipes, washing powder, washing-up liquid, J cloths, aluminium foil, cling film, strong dustbin liners

Toiletries: liquid soap, shower gel, shampoo, shaving foam, disposable razors, men’s spray deodorant.