A massive thank you to everyone in the community who supported our various charities last year – together you helped us raise an incredible £12,259!

This is a fantastic achievement and we couldn’t have done it without you all.

Retiral Offerings throughout the year, which are taken at services including Easter Sunday and Remembrance Sunday, meant we were able to send the following donations to these charities:

Erskine Hospital – £382

SSAFA  – £382

St Vincent’s  – Hospice £780

Scottish Huntington’s Association  – £780

Mwandi Milk Project  – £780

Our Distasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Appeal in the wake of the Turkish/Syrian earthquake raised £619, and we also raised £396 for the British Red Cross Earthquake and Floods in Morocco and Libya Appeal.

Christian Aid received £4,937 from collections around Houston and a further £69.43 from the wee boxes, making a total of more than £5,000.

Collections for Mwandi also raised a substantial amount – including £1,000 for the Chicken Project, £520 for the Brickworker Project, £214 for Children’s Clothes and £369 for incontinence products for care home residents.

The Foodbank received £112 and Kiltwalk Charities £35.

Our ever-popular Kirk Postie raised a fabulous £953 for St Vincent’s Hospice at Christmas time.

Other donations in 2023 included all the food, cleaning items and toiletries donated to our regular Foodbank Collection Point at the West Halls; Easter eggs and warm winter clothes which were given to Barnardos Threads, who support families across Renfrewshire, and the hundreds of Christmas gifts for prisoners’ children which are distributed by CrossReach, the social care arm of the Church of Scotland.

A total of 20kg of baby and children’s clothing was also collected and sent out to Mwandi, where it helps to encourage HIV-positive mums to access healthcare for themselves and their babies.

THANK YOU EVERYONE!