Lidl Sunderland Roker Avenue

Our project operates from the RCCG Living Faith Sunderland church premises, located at North Bridge Street, Sunderland. SR5 1AB. Our facilities are equipped to support a variety of community services and activities, ensuring a welcoming and supportive environment for all who visit. We distribute from the charity building every Sunday and every other days. We identify service users and their needs by community outreach, direct engagement, and feedback from our congregation and local partners. This includes conducting surveys, holding community meetings, and maintaining open lines of communication with those we serve. Our dedicated team of volunteers and church members actively listen to the needs of our community, ensuring that our services are tailored to meet these needs effectively. In addition to food support, RCCG Living Faith Sunderland offers a range of services. All the services provided by our organization, including food support, are offered free of charge.

Our hostels are not just bricks and mortar. Alongside having a safe, secure and stable living environment, our staff and volunteers help our clients to work through their issues and to gain the confidence needed to be able to manage and sustain their tenancies in the wider community. This might be through supporting them to find a detox place, semi-independent accommodation or a private rented home. We provide four meals a day. The menu is varied, healthy and is seasonally adjusted. Missing any meal of the day can mean missing out on the recommended daily amounts of essential vitamins and minerals. This can result in poor physical and mental abilities, so we try to promote healthy and balanced diets for all our residents. Our team of chef/housekeepers try wherever possible to help those residents with strict dietary needs, such as vegetarians, lactose or starch intolerant etc… Not only do our team of dedicated chef/housekeepers prepare meals and carry out full housekeeping duties, they also provide domestic skills training for our residents to undertake to help towards preparing them for semi or full independent living. Our residents will learn how to prepare inexpensive, simple but nutritious dishes and be advised on dietary needs. This training will also include advice on how to store and cook frozen foods safely and how to safely re-heat and store chilled and cooked foods. It also involves personal cleanliness in the kitchen and how to avoid food poisoning and cross contamination. In addition to the cooking skills, our Chef/Housekeepers raise awareness of general hygiene around the home (such as cleaning a cooker, fridge and microwave and keeping bins and the surrounding areas clean and disinfected), including the understanding and uses of cleaning products and their storage We offer support to clients with varying levels of need and issues, such as substance misuse, learning difficulties, mental health problems and offending behaviour. Some clients have minimal needs but just having safe and secure accommodation allows them the time and breathing space to get back on their feet. The Support Team liaise with specialist agencies such as mental health services, drug and alcohol agencies, debt management schemes, mentoring projects, probation services and so on. The team also have good links with and invites on-site work from numerous educational establishments and also offers social life skills courses and other projects for our residents to access. At our supported accommodation flats we offer tenancy sustainment support where our Dispersed Housing Officers visit our clients in their own homes, providing a floating support service. This lighter touch approach helps our clients to adjust to living semi-independently until they are ready to move on into full independence, whether it is in a Housing Association or local authority property or a flat of their own in the private rented sector.

Centrepoint is the UKs leading charity working to tackle the issue of youth homelessness. We have accommodation services in London, Bradford and the North East and support more than 8,500 homeless 16-25 year olds each year. Centrepoint realises that it takes more than just a bed to put an end to homelessness – so we work with each of our young people to ensure that they have access to education and training opportunities, become physically and mentally healthy and gain the essential life skills needed to escape homelessness for good. Centrepoint began working in the North East over 10 years ago, and opened our first purpose built accommodation in Sunderland in 2012. We are responsible for delivering Sunderland’s entire young person’s homelessness pathway meaning that we provide over 170 beds for homeless young people every single night. Last year we supported more than 800 homeless young people in the area. To make a lasting difference to the lives of local young people we want to mobilise the local community and businesses to get involved! We have lots of opportunities from an exciting calendar of fundraising events to regular volunteering roles, there are so many ways for you and your colleagues to get involved! We are really grateful for any donations we receive, with more funding we could improve the lives of more disadvantaged young people across the North East through our support model of prevention, accommodation and move-on services. The young people that Centrepoint supports often come to us with very few personal possessions, so any donations of toiletries, food and other necessities are really appreciated. If you would like to get involved with Centrepoint's work in the North East, then please do not hesitate to get in touch! Contact Amy Gormanley E: a.gormanley@centrepoint.org T: 0191 510 9762