Founded in what was then one of the most poverty stricken areas of Manchester in 1869, the staff of Wood Street Mission are busier than ever as we approach Christmas.About Manchester pays a visit.
The shelves are filled with food, tins of corned beef, numerous cereals, bags of pasta and rice,tinned vegetables and fruit on the floor below, once a gym, the same scene, only this time the shelves are filled with toys as volunteers and staff sort and bag to deliver to families across Manchester and Salford.
This is the Wood Street Mission nestled behind the John Rylands library set up in founded in 1869 by Alfred Alsop, a local minister and businessman moved by the plight of the families living in that area in the depths of poverty and squalor, an unsung Manchester hero in the eyes of many.
According to Wood Street’s own records, “hundreds of meals were served from a soup kitchen and thousands of clogs and clothing were given away; at Christmas hundreds were entertained to breakfast and thousands of toys presented.”
The practical necessities of life – food, clothing and shelter – were provided for hundreds of poor children and their families, while their spiritual and recreational needs were also attended to: church services and Sunday schools were held, and in 1897 a holiday camp was built at St Anne’s on Sea near Blackpool which would continue until the 1960’s.
Today much has changed both inside and outside the charity but the problems remain and are of course highlighted at this time of the year.
The charity, operations manager Des Lynch tells me, collects donations from all over Greater Manchester and Cheshire, its van travels out every day to pick up the donations.
Wood Street Mission runs campaigns during the year.One covers clothing including bedding and nursery equipment.School uniforms are also distributed with the aim of improving life chances for kids in school.
This ties in with a number of book clubs that the charity runs.The Mission has a children’s library and also runs outreach days where they go out into the community with the library.They are running a special Xmas one next week in Higher Broughton.
Christmas though is the main project, hence the hive of activity at the moment with toys and food distributed to the most needed families.
These are all referred to the charity by people such as health workers, children’s services,and will receive one bag of non perishable foods, balanced says Des, with the aim of providing a nutritious breakfast lunch and dinner.
Each bag contains around twenty items and with 2,000 families refered to the mission, some receiving more than one bag, you can do the maths.
A family can stay on the scheme for up to two years but can be re refered after that time if deemed still in need of the services.
The charity has eight employees, three of whom are part time and a team of twelve volunteers who work one day a week.
At busy times of the year, the charity uses extra volunteers from its corporate partners.Last year that amounted to over two hundred and Des expects around the same number this year.
It receives no statutory funding and is reliant on charitable donations.In the last few years its work has grown enormously partly due to its greater interactivity but also as a sign of the times.
But I am sure Alfred Alsop would be proud that his legacy would still be going nearly one hundred and fifty years later.
