New campaign aims to help community recover from pandemic
The beginning of Advent has been launched by a city cathedral with a set of new years resolutions.
Lichfield has launched a new campaign called "ReSource: recovering together", a major two year-campaign to help in the recovery following the pandemic.
The Dean of Lichfield, Rev. Adrian Dorber said the campaign was also to ensure that the ancient and iconic Cathedral remains at the heart of the community as a source of hope and healing for the future.
He said: "The Covid pandemic has been, and in many ways continues to be, one of the most difficult challenges that Lichfield Cathedral has witnessed in over a thousand years.
"We are all too aware that both within the Cathedral community and within the City and wider region the Cathedral serves, there has been great hardship.
"Together we have witnessed bereavement and continued illness, social isolation and financial hardship, and education, jobs and opportunities have all been disrupted.
"Here at the Cathedral we want to be able to offer tangible support and resources to the communities around us, as together we set out on the road to recovery.
"The Cathedral aims to help with bereavement and loss and to provide a safe space in which people can process the effects of the pandemic in a building where the hopes and fears of generations have been contained and held."
Rev. Dorber said funding received by the cathedral would help it, but it also hoped to gain extra help from the community.
He said: "Thanks to a number of grants and generous donations, the Cathedral has already raised £1.1m towards its target of £2 million.
"In addition, the Cathedral also hopes to encourage 50,000 hours of volunteer time as we seek to reach out to support the local community and to welcome them though our doors.
"With no regular funding from the government, Lichfield Cathedral relies on the generosity of donors to help us financially to meet our costs.
"The good will and hard work of volunteers who work tirelessly to support us and who will help us turn these ambitious plans into action.
"We are hoping that many will share our vision and will join us as we seek to be a very real resource in helping our communities to recover from the Covid pandemic."
