By Frankie Greenwood, Families & Community Development Worker

In December 2022, Houston and Killellan Kirk were awarded a Winter Support grant from the Church of Scotland’s Small Grants Fund 2022. The purpose of the grant was to work with members of the community and support people in our local area through the winter months by providing hot food, a space where people could keep warm and engage socially, and also to provide warm clothing and blankets.

We approached several organisations to identify people in the community who would benefit from a warm meal and some company through the winter months. We were delighted to receive the support of Active Communities, an award-winning health and wellbeing charity in Renfrewshire who empower, inspire and support people to improve their health and wellbeing, and Barnardo’s Threads in Paisley who support young parents to help them give their children the best start in life. We then approached Jason Andrews, from The River Inn, Houston, to see if we could work together on this. Jason did not hesitate to support our community once again, offering to supply a warm space and fabulous 3 course Sunday carvery to the people identified by Active Communities and Barnardo’s Threads.

To ensure that as many people as possible were able to attend the meal, we used a portion of the grant award to hire a minibus to take them to and from the River Inn. We also provided each person with a warm blanket, or “oodie” to take home with them, and were also able to supply additional clothing and warm blankets to other people who were unable to attend. At the December event, the River Inn even arranged for Santa to visit, which brought much delight to the children and families who came along.

This was a wonderful project to be involved in, and we would like to thank Jason and his team at the River Inn for their support and generosity. They all went above and beyond to support this project, and those who came along thoroughly enjoyed the food, space and company. We would also like to thank Active Communities and Barnardo’s Threads for working alongside us, and for the wonderful work that you do in the local area.

We are extremely grateful to the Church of Scotland for the funding that made this possible, and that made a huge difference to so many.