At the outset of the COVID-19 lockdown, St Peter’s and our family of Brighton churches (St Matthias and St Cuthman’s) launched a comprehensive response to meet the changing needs of our city. To achieve this, we set up a central logistics hub, in complementary partnership with local government and other agencies, charities and churches, providing a range of aid; serving food and essential supplies to a large number of vulnerable people across our city.

How we helped

Our #LoveYourNeighbour campaign was run throughout Brighton. We delivered food parcels to nearly 800 of our neighbours within the city every week. These weekly parcels contained prepared meals, preserved and fresh food such as fruit, vegetables, dairy and bread, as well as other treats, flowers and handwritten cards and required toiletries. Shops and restaurants across the city such as Cook, Waitrose, Higgidy, Spade & Spoon, SuperDoux, The Caring Foundation – made up of Bills, The Ivy and Annabels, generously gave St Peter’s the essentials needed to fill these hampers. Nearly 600 of these food parcels were delivered to 25 hostels some of which are now temporary homes for many people across Brighton and Hove, including the guests who usually join us for Safehaven Mother and Baby and Safehaven Women. Alongside these deliveries, we provided food drop-in service (with social distancing) in the St Peter’s car park on a Wednesday and Saturday where other Safehaven guests could pick up a takeaway food parcel. 

All this new activity saw turn our ever-versatile church building into a food and supplies distribution centre, with fridges, shelves and shopping trolleys and all manned by a growing group of volunteers. 

Across the city, Foodbank at St Cuthman’s is still hard at work in meeting the growing demand for food & support for 120 residents from the Whitehawk area. Click here to find out more.

Do you need help?

We want to be able to identify our neighbours who are in need of our support and assistance so please do let us know if there is any way that we can help you. You can get in touch by calling the St Peter’s office on 01273 698182. 

It is so important to be able to show our community the love and support that we all need at this time. Recent feedback from a YMCA-managed hostel has been so positive: ‘We are so grateful to St Peter’s Brighton and their Love Your Neighbour campaign. One of our clients said it was ‘the most thoughtful yet competent care package’ he had ever received! We are definitely feeling the love, it is heartwarming to be a part of such a community’.