Charity

St Mary’s Church has a programme of fundraising to support local, national, and international charities. We raise in excess of £10,000 each year for our chosen charity.

Our Charity of the Year for 2025 is:

SLOW: Surviving the Loss of your World

SLOW aims to provide an informal, quiet place for bereaved families through regular Face to Face and Zoom support groups and workshops for siblings.

Members say that the groups provide a safe haven, a place to take time-out from the demands of the ‘outside world’ at a time when life has been irrevocably changed by their child or sibling’s death.

SLOW knows that the death of your loved one affects every aspect of your life, including relationships with family, friends and the world at large. SLOW is a place to be just as you are and take strength from the support of others, before returning to daily life and its challenges.

The Charity of the Year Committee feel that by supporting SLOWin 2025, we will be continuing to help – through empathy and fund-raising – many families who are journeying along a path that is beginning to offer different perspectives, different values, different strengths and different relationships and, most importantly, a deep and continuing bond with their child and sibling who has died.

make a donation to ‘SLOW’

Some of our fundraising events for ‘SLOW’ this year will include:

  • Concert by Quartet Camerata – Sunday 12th January at 3pm;
  • Plant Sale – 25th May;
  • Music Marathon – Friday 6th to Saturday 7th June … with a concert on the Saturday evening;
  • Event at St Luke’s School – tbc
  • Hymns & Pimms – at The Cricketers Pub – tbc
  • December fund-raising …
  • Beer & Carols – at The Cricketers Pub
  • Community Carols

We need your help to reach this ambitious fundraising target. Please have a think about how you might be able to get involved. Could you:

Please get in touch for further information or to volunteer to help in some way.