Volunteers from The4Cs Climate Change Community Champions have been developing Gateshead City of Sanctuary since June of this year.

We are always keen to find out what is going on in the local area, so when we heard about an exciting new community event called Newcastle SOUP being held at Ernest in Ouseburn,  we really wanted to get involved. The idea is that representatives from four local community projects have four minutes to talk about their work. People who come along to the event donate £4 and are given the opportunity to ask the speakers four questions. Once the speakers have spoken about their projects and the questions have been answered, people eat soup together and vote for the project they would like the donations to go to.

The event had a lovely community spirit, and it didn’t feel competitive as we all supported and encouraged each other. It was  a really great opportunity to learn about local projects, share ideas, and meet like-minded people with a love of all things community! We even met some people who were keen to volunteer and share their time and skills with the project.

We were joined by Fiona and Janet from NETA, Michael and Eddie from EcoSwell, and Loraine from CafeCulture North East. Their projects are doing some amazing work both here in the north east of England, and in Peru too.

We were lucky enough to receive the most votes on the evening! To say that we were delighted about receiving the funding would be a massive understatement. The £226.50 donated by the good people at SOUP will really help us with our plans to establish weekly lunch sessions for people seeking sanctuary in Gateshead.

We are now well on our way to reaching the £600 needed to register with Fareshare. Fareshare help community projects by providing good food that’s surplus to the food industry’s needs. They’re an amazing organisation and are really working towards fighting poverty and hunger, and tackling food waste. Very closely linked to our own aims and objectives at The4Cs and Gateshead City of Sanctuary.

If you would like to donate to help us raise funds to set up the much-needed lunch club, please use this link to donate safely via our Global Giving funding page.

https://www.globalgiving.co.uk/projects/gateshead-lunch/