Christ Centre Community Project

Aim

Serving our community with love; bridging poverty and discrimination gaps. Improving financial and physical wellbeing in the midst of crisis

Bring the Destiny Campus Community Project Alive! 

The problem

The UK has experienced a fall in 'real' disposable income since late 2021 and in 2023, inflation rates remain near a 40-year high.   Pressures post-COVID and an ongoing war in Ukraine have contributed to soaring energy costs, increased food prices and high-interest rates.   The impact has been felt by all sectors of the society, from the most vulnerable individuals, to families and businesses; have all been impacted by the economic crisis.

About Us

The Destiny Campus Community Project is overseen by Covenant Church - an 18-year-old faith-based charity with a high track record of impacting our society positively by offering services to people of all backgrounds in Southampton and beyond. 

As part of our core charity objectives,  we aim to prevent and provide relief of poverty, providing services to individuals in need as shown in our Companies House registration:

• the prevention or relief of poverty by providing grants, items and services to individuals in need and services to charities or other organisations working to prevent or relieve poverty
• (for the public benefit) to promote the education of young people in such ways as the charity thinks fit including a) providing assistance to children and students with their studies; b) supporting parents to engage more with their children’s education and encouraging greater parental involvement and c) the provision of seminars, lectures and career counselling services.

Our History and Vision

In supporting our community in attaining financial well-being, we already run several community-focused projects and programmes. These include:

• Business Empowerment & Employment Network (B2EN): 

Through B2EN, we offer services that support people in their business and career journeys as outlined on the website here (https://www.b2en.org.uk). We carry out the following activities as part of the drive to provide these services:

Seminars and Coffee Mornings to train and support people on:

 - CV writing and job application assistance

 - Business start-up advice

 - Life skills training including money coaching, accounting and budgeting

 - Time management 

 - Career progression

 - Interview Preparation

 - Property investment

• Printed Resources:  We have printed resources that address the importance of financial well-being in homes and families; The Marriage Book: A Practical Guide (ISBN 978-1-7397309-0-1), Finance section on page 40 onwards. 
• Debt counselling, and money management:   We have 6 trained money coaches who implement regular courses to equip people with simple budgeting and assessment tools to navigate through the economic challenges they may be facing in collaboration with Christians Against Poverty (CAP).
• Seasonal Angel Project: We distribute food hampers to low-income families in our neighbourhood.
• Spring and Summer fairs:   We hold annual fairs where we provide free food, health checks and games for the community. 
• Food and clothes banks referral agent:  We issue vouchers to the most vulnerable to enable them to access basics for free at the Southampton City Mission.
• Annual advice seminars on Finance for our whole congregation as part of our Family Life & Relation Enrichment (FLARE) month.  We run annual advice seminars on Finance for our whole congregation as part of our Family Life & Relation Enrichment (FLARE) month. These seminars are led by relevant professionals focused on providing answers to finance-related questions.
• Parent and Toddler Group:  In 2017, we started a toddler and parent group meeting during term times which is open to parents with preschool children.

The services we provide continue to grow, and our aim is to reach even greater numbers of individuals, and families as well as wider parts of our community.  Your support would help us continue and expand our services.

The funds raised will go towards the current and upcoming operational costs of the community-centred projects which relate to financial well-being that we currently, and will continue to, undertake. 

Our operational costs to be covered in the next year include, but are not limited to:

• Our  Angel Project food hampers for families, free toys for children under age 10; and a supply of basic amenities. 
• Running Money courses in collaboration with Christians Against Poverty to help people get out of debt and gain financial mastery. Our trained CAP money coaches will help individuals run a financial assessment, access budgeting tools and give energy-saving advice. 
• Running empowerment schemes to help people gain employment, start and grow their businesses, and climb the career ladder.
• Advertisement and running of events and seminars.
• Providing resources for attending delegates. 
• Hiring external contributors and coaches where new skill sets are required.

Our beneficiaries are members of the general public from all ethnicities and backgrounds that require such services. All our beneficiaries are UK based and largely reside in local communities in Southampton. 

As you can see, our organisation is already heavily involved in several projects and programmes, which are free for all our beneficiaries but require a significant amount of resources to keep running. 

The Aviva Cost of Living Boost will make a real difference to allow us to continue these projects, especially now, during this difficult time of financial hardship that many families face. 

This project successfully funded on 11th April 2023