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Charity Work
At Walton Methodist Church we strongly believe that we should be part of the local and worldwide community helping and supporting a variety of charity work.
On this page you can look at some of the charity work that takes place within the Walton Methodist Church community and you can follow the links to find out more about some of the individual charities we support.
Walton & Hersham Food Bank
There is a food bank on Monday and Tuesday in St Peter’s Church Hersham and on Thursday and Friday in St John’s Church Walton. There is a small group, from Walton Methodist Church, who help run the foodbank in Walton. When we started a few years ago, there were some days when there were very few visitors. However, over the last twelve months there has been a great increase in the numbers attending. Universal credit and 0 hours pay have quite a lot to do with why individuals and families suddenly find that they have money for heating or eating but not both.
When people visit the food bank for the first time they are usually very nervous and we take great care to comfort them and assure them that we are pleased that they have come and that we can help them in some small way.
They all have interesting stories to tell and it is great listening to them. You can find out about some of the on the Trussel Trust website.
At Walton Methodist we have a great group of people who regularly donate food and cleaning materials through the box in the church. At the foodbank we appreciate the continuing help this gives. If you would like to know more about Walton and Hersham food bank just visit their website.
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Action for Children
This is a National Charity linked very closely to the Methodist Church which originally ran children's homes or orphanages across the country. Now with many projects, including one locally in Kingston on Thames, it is something that Walton Methodist has been proud to support over many years. We have done this by fund raising concerts; carol singing and Street and House to house collections. Several members have helped organise these efforts and many members have given up their time to assist.
The website for this wonderful charity tells you so much more about what they do to help children and families
who need support.
Operation Christmas Child
Shoe boxes are now on sale The cost is £3.35p per box which includes the £3 transportation cost. At the harvest service the church family were set a challenge by the scouts to place one item with the initial from the alphabet in their shoebox - quite a daunting task but I am sure we will do the best that we can. Many thanks for supporting this worthwhile cause.
Last year we bought 100 decorated flat pack shoe boxes from Samaritan’s Purse for us to fill for their annual Christmas appeal - which cost 30p each. People were able to “buy” the shoe boxes for £3.30 each, £3 of which was the recommended minimum donation requested by Samaritan’s Purse, which went towards the cost of their transportation and distribution overseas.
In total we put together and filled 181 boxes and loaded all of these into the van at the end of worship on Sunday 16th November. Thank you to everyone that supported this and hopefully we can beat this impressive total next year!
Love Russia
Walton Methodist Church have been supporting the charity Love Russia now for many years. It started by the Sunday school putting on two seperate performances of the little musical the 'Russian Shoemaker'.
The charity work, in specific areas of Russia, is very varied and money is much needed. The abuse of alcohol-usually vodka-leads to many disfunctional families and therefore children are in desperate need of love and care. Orphanages have been very poorly equipped in their very cold winters, frequently under-heated. The charity has done a lot to improve this situation.
Two or three summer camps are a means of helping some of the children when young people, often students, go over for a week or fortnight and give the children a really fun time by loving and playing with them and sharing the love of Jesus.
The young people come back with happy memories of their time with them and are really blessed by the experience.
The proceeds from our Christmas card board goes to this charity and is greatly appreciated.
All We Can
MRDF went thorough a radical change this year. In April there was a big launch at Westminster Central Hall when the new name and website came into being.
"Most Wednesday’s I go to Methodist House and spend a day working with the All We Can team. They are a lively young group, who enjoy fun and a chat while also caring very much that the work of All We Can is properly carried out.
One change this year has been to put more emphasis on campaigning. Over the summer I have been collating the replies to their campaigns and writing up reports from some of the visits to Nepal and Uganda. Soon I will be sending out the extraordinary gifts, which are often used as Christmas presents." Jeannette, Steward at Walton Methodist church