Today the Member of Parliament for Eastleigh, and Minister for Loneliness, Mims Davies, visited All Saints C of E Church in Eastleigh as part of Eastleigh HOPE 19 week to meet Church leaders, volunteers and church groups.
Eastleigh HOPE 19 is about Churches Together in Eastleigh (CTiE) coming together and jointly offering a series of events across the week. There were several ‘streams’ offered this year including;
- Social Action: garden clearance, repairs art and craft sessions
- Silver Stream: The Big Cream tea, for elderly folk, with tea and entertainment
- Millennials Stream: Aimed towards school leavers to 30-year-old age group
- The Turning: Street Evangelism in Eastleigh town Centre every day lunchtimes
- Combined Celebration – all churches uniting in service
Commenting after the visit, Eastleigh MP and Loneliness Minister Mims Davies said:
“After a very busy and hot morning visiting organisations across the constituency, it was bliss to sit down in the cool and calm of All Saints Church for the chance of a cuppa and a chat at the ‘Big Cream tea for elderly folk’ event. It was my absolute privilege to meet so many kind and caring people from across our community, all coming together for friendship, support, prayers, singing and of course some cake!”
“An annual event in the school diary, children from Norwood Primary School were there to sing to us and afterwards eager to catch up with me again following my recent visit to their school to talk about the 100-year Suffrage movement. I passionately believe that inter- generation friendship and communication should be encouraged within the community as there is so much each group can learn from the other.
“As the Minister for Loneliness and Charities, I fully support and understand the work that groups such as CTiE and all our charitable organisations do daily to help support people within our communities. All of us can experience loneliness at some point in our lives and it’s time we started talking about it, which is why we launched our #Letstalkloneliness campaign in June to get this subject out in the open.”
As Eastleigh’s MP, Mims has always looked to support local organisations, regularly meeting with them across the constituency and representing their views in Westminster. If you would like Mims to come and visit you, please contact mims.davies.mp@parliament.uk