Appeal to save St John's Church as events cancelled during lockdown
An urgent appeal has gone out to help preserve a church which lies in the heart of the Black Country.
The St John’s Church Preservation Group has launched the Friends of St John’s appeal on Facebook to help keep the church in Kates Hill, Dudley, from being permanently closed and demolished.
The group took on the lease of the church in 2016 after a nine-year campaign and have used the church, which closed in 2002, as a community centre.
This has included six services a year and the running of a sales room and cafe at the church to raise funds for its upkeep and insurance costs.
The coronavirus outbreak has had a dramatic effect on the fundraising efforts, with all events cancelled, and the group has been forced to look at other ways to raise funds.
The group now has one month’s overheads left, and is struggling to find rescue funds as emergency funds are directed at coronavirus charities.
Trustees and volunteers are putting money in to help keep the project afloat, and the group is urgently appealing for people to join the appeal to save the church from being closed and the charity folding.
Deb Brownlee, chairwoman of the group, said the help of friends of the church would be vital for the future.
She said: “We were already financially weakened due to having to find almost £40,000 for insurance costs since we re-opened the church in 2016.
“We are completely ruined by this lockdown which has stopped all our fundraising activities. We’ve got to appeal to people to please become a friend and set up an on-going donation of £5 a month or £1 if you’ve been furloughed.
“The reason we’re saying it needs to be ongoing and we’re trying to get friends, not one off donations, is because when we come out of lock down, we’ll have to do a staged reopening.
“It’s not as though we can come back exactly as we were before and the minute the numbers with Covid-19 get back beyond a certain level, they’ll lock everybody down again. This is going to be an on-going thing and we’re going to have to rely on friends income.”
The appeal has 30 friends signed up so far, with a minimum of 400 needed to help provide a fund of £2,000 per month.
To find out more, call Deb Brownlee on 07522 184461 or email savestjohnschurch@hotmail.co.uk
