In November a great crowd gathered for Downend SOUP for their 7th evening of Community Crowdfunding. Three brave souls took to the stage and explained their cause and the funding, help or volunteers they wanted.
George spoke for The Littlest Rescue https://www.facebook.com/TheLittlestRescue/
a pet re-homing charity based in Staple Hill. Where they are looking for funding to relocate some of their project to get more space for keeping guinea pigs, rabbits and other small pets.
We heard from Kathy, one of the volunteer Run Directors at Page Park junior parkrun. https://www.facebook.com/pageparkjuniors/
Kathy pitched for funding to provide an external cabinet to store their parkrun portable Defibrillator (AED) in Page Park. This AED would be accessible to all those using the park. Currently the AED is stored inside the Bean Tree Cafe.
And Katie pitched for “Quizzing for Causes” https://www.facebook.com/Quizzing-for-Causes-2950686531638665/
She started her monthly quiz sheets for adults and children in July when she visited Messy Church at St James’ & heard about the building renovations at Mangotsfield Church and from then she continued raising funds for different charities each month. She pitched for help with setting up online sign ups and funds to help pay for printing/ delivering quizzes.
The gathered community were then entertained by a Year 7 local lass, Caitlin Wyn Drummond who played guitar and sang for us. Please find her and subscribe to her YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWQke2Xd1U4JCWEZazgSBgw
Our winners from the last Soup event were unable to come along to share updates on how the funding they received from the last Soup but instead we heard from an exciting new initiative which will be visiting the Staple Hill Community Hub twice a month. The Matthew Tree Project will be bringing their big yellow mobile food bank in a lorry to one of our previous Downend Soup winners, the Staple Hill Community Hub.
At the end of our evening our votes were counted & Katie from “Quizzes for Causes” was voted our winner. She took our door money of £325.26 home with her to help her develop her Quiz network which each month raises money for other causes. Well done Katie.
Downend SOUP relies on a big team of helpers, on the night and by donating bread, soup & cakes. Alan, Adrian and Steve from the 41 Club ran our soup kitchen, Mel from Melanie’s Kitchen,Downend and Alan from Chatterton’s Cafe donated the delicious soup. Sophie was on bread and cake duty as our catering manager, local cake makers donated cakes, Fishponds Girl Guides welcomed everyone and sorted out tickets, votes and donations. Bread was donated by Hart’s Bakery at Temple Meads, Co-op Downend and the The Redland Bakery at Staple Hill. Greggs baker’s, Henderson’s Cleaning, Marks & Spencer & Bristol Airport have all pitched in too. Downend Soup is a community project which is powered by Christ Church Downend & spearheaded by Ian Browne, the Church provide some of the volunteers and host the event twice per year, cafe style in the newly re-ordered Church.
