Warm Welcome Choral Evensong Celebration at St Paul’s Cathedral

On Wednesday this week, hundreds of volunteers and leaders from Warm Welcome Spaces gathered with partners, funders and other supporters of the Warm Welcome Campaign for a celebration service at St Paul’s Cathedral to thank the people who run Warm Spaces up and down the country.

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Warm Welcome Campaign Director David Barclay said: “It was a moment to celebrate and give thanks for the life-changing work that community spaces do every day, and the contribution they make not just in their own places but to the life of this country.”

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Moving testimony was read at St Paul’s by Niall Haviland, a volunteer at The Nourish Hub Warm Welcome Space in London, who spoke of his experience visiting Nourish Hub and building confidence by working in the kitchen. Niall has struggled with mental health in the past and has been volunteering at Nourish Hub for three years now. He said: “I feel closer than ever before to flourishing in a world that once felt too severe.”

We were delighted to be joined at St Paul’s by the Dean of Leicester Cathedral, our 6,000th registered Warm Welcome Space, who delivered a fantastic sermon.

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Our enormous thanks go to those who read prayers at the service: Jude Levermore of The Methodist Church, Emeka Forbes of the Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion, Katie Greene of Acts 435 and Jason Taylor of Holy Trinity, Leytonstone Warm Welcome Space.

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Thanks also to Revd Paul Desborough, enabling minister at Sinfin Moor Church Warm Welcome Space, who read the second lesson.

Chain of Hope

During the Evensong Service, our Chain of Hope, which represents the 6,000-plus Warm Welcome Spaces, was given as an Offertory during the Call to Action. 

After the service, we also hosted a small reception for some Warm Welcome Spaces, funders and partners after the service, where we shared our “Chain of Hope”, a paper chain that we started back in January in Warm Welcome Week, inscribed with names of spaces, space guests and partners who make up what our founding patron, the Rt Hon Gordon Brown has called “a chain of hope”, the network of Warm Welcome Spaces across the country.

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Speaking at the reception, Heidi Glendenning of Warm Welcome Space Thrive at the Fen in Norfolk talked about the variety of ways their rural space supports people in their community.

Heidi talked about a brother and sister who regularly come to the space; both have additional needs. Their father died when they were younger, and their mother recently died. They had never lived independently and were moved to another area. Thankfully, their key worker brought them along to the space, and they loved it. Now Thrive arranges transport so they can come every week. They love their cuppa and all the activities and recently said, "We love it here, Heidi; you don’t get this in Costa Coffee!”

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David Barclay concluded, "St. Paul's Cathedral was looking stunning in the sun as we welcomed hundreds of people representing Warm Welcome Spaces from all over the UK along with our wide array of corporate supporters, charities, funders, and other partner organisations.”

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