Suffolk church offers ‘Warm Room’ to those struggling to pay energy bills

Mar 16, 2022 by Jill

by Kelly Valencia, Premier:

A church in Suffolk is helping people tackle high-living costs and loneliness.

As fuel, energy and food prices soar, Holy Trinity Church has teamed up with Together with Bungay Community Support, to come up with the “Warm Room” scheme.

The project provides free and warm spaces for people to come five days a week to chat, drink tea and play cards while keeping warm.

Rev Josh Bailey from the church told Premier the scheme gives an incentive to people to come out of their house and not suffer in silence.

“It’s interesting that the stigma of the church building is still a barrier. If literally, the only reason you’re coming into the church is because it has heating that someone else is willing to pay, that removes some barriers and we’ve seen that with people.”

“Some people who have had other needs in the town [such as] help with bills, or help with food have kind of come alongside it a little. It’s kind of a relatively inauspicious way to gather for this one reason,” he continued.

The Warm Room in the church has also started to become a foodbank drop off point and bags of donated clothes are also kept in the corner for people to take home if they need to.

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