St. John's 'Lift Off' Appeal

St John's Church in Bridgetown Totnes is a real community hub for Bridgetown which has areas of deprivation but also for the wider community of Totnes and afar.

The lift is an integral part of our building for accessibility and we are now at a crisis point of having a non working lift so are in need of urgent funds and need to raise over £60K urgently.

We run our own pay what you feel community cafe every week which was set up to help support folk with loneliness and isolation. It has become extremely successful and expanded with the local Citizens Advice bureau doing an outreach session every week with us at the top of the building and we have a free creative session to support people's mental wellbeing up 1 flight of stairs on the Mezzanine floor, so a lift is essential every Wednesday.

As well as us as a church community putting on regular events we have various spaces available to hire across 3 levels of our building. We have regular users of our building. These include

Parent and toddler group

Sunday Club

Support groups

Strength and balance classes

Yoga

Tai Chi

Aikidio

Jazz Workshops

Youth group club to name a few

Several of these classes are up either 1 or 2 fights of stairs

We also house the food bank which runs a Warm Hearts Cafe 3 days a week

The food bank is up 1 flight of stairs with clients in wheelchairs and parents with prams and it has deliveries regularly so the lift is extremely important for access and safeguarding volunteers, many of whom have vulnerable health issues themselves.

Please support our campaign and donate whatever you can to help us get a new lift so our building can carry on supporting our community

Thank you in advance