21st December 2022
Sanctuary
Volunteers from social housing provider Sanctuary have just finished installing a brand new kitchen at St Peters Church in Ipswich.
St Peters Church sits on the edge of Stoke Park, a large housing estate in southwest Ipswich where Sanctuary provides a number of homes.
The team at St Peters are keen to support Stoke Park residents. They wanted to offer warmth and comfort this winter but were held back by a lack of facilities.
Sanctuary’s Community Connector, Edith Mason, saw the potential benefits to the community and invited some of her colleagues to get involved and offer their expertise.
Phill Turner, Regional Operations Manager, took one look at the tired old kitchen and realised it needed more than a fresh coat of paint. He and Edith sat down with the church to understand what they wanted from the space before inviting others to get involved with the transformation.
Sanctuary aims to deliver social value through its relationships with its contractors, by finding ways to work together to benefit communities.
Phill approached suppliers Travis Perkins, Rexel and Magnet, and contractors AP Construction and Top Flite Electrical, to see if they would support the project. All of them wanted to be involved and generously sent along materials or operatives, who worked alongside volunteers from Sanctuary.
Over three weeks, this fantastic team effort came together and the new kitchen was unveiled in time for Christmas.
The new community kitchen with the donated double range oven.
The new facilities include a range cooker with a double oven funded by Sanctuary’s supply chain partners. They will enable the church to run a community café, host social groups and events, and deliver hot food to those who are hardest hit by the cost of living crisis.
Reverend Emily Swinerd thanked all those who got involved: “The new kitchen will make a big difference to what we are able to do to support the community. Now we can serve warm soup, cook meals and we are planning on starting cooking and baking classes.
“Thank you so much to everyone involved for transforming this tired, underused space into something that will benefit a lot of people.”
