June - Cheltenham Open Door

Cheltenham Open Door is a local charity working to relieve poverty, hardship and social or emotional distress.  Originally founded in 1992 as Open Door at Christmas we continued by providing Sunday breakfasts from January 1993.

We gradually expanded and developed our work taking the new name of Cheltenham Open Door and becoming both a registered charity and limited company.  We have been operating from our Grosvenor Street base since 1998.

Cheltenham Open Door supports vulnerable, disadvantaged and lonely people. Our guests are men and women who have been deprived of the comforts and security most of us take for granted, and we offer them hospitality, warmth, food and somewhere to relax. Many have health issues and a difficult or complicated background.

We do not judge and we make no charge for any of our services.

Our Christmas shelter still runs every year, (open 24th to 27th December), during which time we try to provide a warm and welcoming environment for those in need. We provide a full Christmas dinner, and a present for every guest. In addition there is fun, music and games for all.

Throughout the year we still open on Sunday mornings for breakfast. We are also open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday when, in addition to lunch, a range of other services such as clothes store, showers and access to advice and help are available. A recent innovation has been to organise an annual outing to a local place of interest (this year: Cotswold Wildlife Park) and to run short courses such as cookery and art.

Our latest project, currently in the very early stages, is to provide supervised access to the internet for our guests.  As more and more services become available on-line (sometimes ONLY on-line) we became aware that this was another area where our guests could otherwise be missing out.
Our core business however remains providing hot meals four times a week – totalling approximately 10,000 meals a year.  We rely almost entirely on donations: money (of course!), food (particularly basic tinned goods) and clothes (especially men's warm clothing/shoes) are among the most important.

More information and contact details can be found at: www.cheltenhamopendoor.org.ukwww.cheltenhamopendoor.org.uk

Mary Michael