St Wilfrid’s Centre marks 30 years of supporting homeless and vulnerable in Sheffield

St Wilfrid’s Centre will mark three decades of support on Thursday, January 7, with a small celebration due to current lockdown restrictions.

However, the celebrations will not stop there as the centre is already planning a number of events throughout 2021.

The new year will be marked with 30 events, all of which are aimed at raising the profile of St Wilfrid’s – celebrating the impact it has had throughout the past three decades and raising vital funds to sustain its work for years to come.

Ruth Moore, head of St Wilfrid’s, explained how staff and volunteers are adapting to support clients through the third national lockdown as the centre enters its 30th anniversary year.

She said: "We know it is essential that we continue to support clients. Our Welfare Team will be regularly contacting our current clients, checking on how they are and if they need anything and activity packs will continue to be sent out.

“In order to provide emergency support for rough sleepers, St Wilfrid’s Centre is also being staffed for essential welfare services for two hours between 1pm and 3pm.

"This is to provide an emergency welfare service to rough sleepers and those in crisis including food, drinks, clothes, shoes and sleeping bags – all to take away.

"For many people, especially those who live alone or who have families who live away, the sense of isolation and loneliness can so easily become overbearing. As Mark Twain said – ‘to get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.’

"It seems vital to me, therefore, that we continue to find ways of bringing people together, if not in actual spaces, in ways that help people divide their lives with others.

"The 30th anniversary events throughout the year should provide an opportunity to do this.”

Official diary records show that only two clients initially visited St Wilfrid’s Centre on January 7, 1991, but by the end of that year it was receiving an average of 22 clients a day.

Since then, the day centre on Queens Road has continued to develop and grow to meet the needs of the homeless, vulnerable or socially excluded adults it serves – providing a range of welfare services and an increasing personal development programme.

It now employs 17 staff who work alongside over 100 volunteers to support over 500 clients each year through the day centre and St Wilfrid’s Place, a block of twenty self-contained flats which are located next door.

The £2 million housing project first opened in 2017 and provides housing to adults with a history of homelessness, allowing residents to stay in their own apartment for up to two years before they can celebrate moving on.

St Wilfrid’s is now hoping that people in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire will join in recognising the valuable support provided by the centre and consider how they can help to raise much appreciated funds this year.

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