Church Transforming Community – Community Transforming Church

This video story and article are by the Church of England Environment Communications Team working with the team at East Marsh. Thanks goes to all involved in making its production possible.

An ambitious church at the heart of the community

Ten thousand people live in East Marsh in Grimsby. For many years it was home to those working in the fishing industry and at the port. But with the collapse of the fishing industry, things have changed in this community.

East Marsh is now one of the least resourced places in England, on every metric: income, health, crime and education. More than a third of children in the area live in poverty, according to the End Child Poverty coalition, and within one square mile in the area, there are six food banks.

One of them is run by St John and St Stephen’s Church. It provides food for over 150 people three times a week. But the church is doing more than this, through changing its environment inside and out, its aiming to bring people together, help with their mental health and wellbeing, and change the mindset of what’s possible, as well as greening the environment. Big ambitions for one church community.

A building serving the community

“We want to show people what can be done in a small place,” said Priest-in-Charge, Rev Kay Jones. “So, we started with the church environment being different.”

Inside the building, a legacy provided for LED lighting and thermal boards. “It’s not freezing anymore,” said Kay. “We can have warm-space activities. People like being here.”

The church runs a dinner providing a main course and a pudding for £2.50 which is ‘becoming more popular’ according to Kay.

Growing with the community

Outside, things have changed too. A gardening project has led to planters providing vegetables for the church kitchen, a potting shed, and attractive planting.

Nearby, the church plans to use a piece of waste ground to create a small orchard and a meadow. And people are connecting with it. An open day to launch the potting shed brought 17 adults and 27 children together. “It was hard to get rid of them at the end,” Kay joked. “It is changing things for small numbers of people,” she added

Restoring relationships

Those people included local youths, who destroyed the planters several times and threw things at people doing the gardening. But, in the end curiosity overcame them, and they helped ‘grafting’ in the garden to help get the landscaping done.

Older members of the church community are becoming ‘grandparent figures’ to younger people ‘who aren’t well-parented.’ Kay says

What I’m seeing is people wanting to be part of what we do. People are trying different foods grown in the garden, learning how – and what – to recycle in the church’s recycling bins, and crucially, learning where food comes from, helping to reduce their food bills.

Many people live their whole lives in East Marsh, she said, unable to access the beautiful countryside around Grimsby, so greening the area is really important. Plans are afoot for a foraging garden, where you can touch and smell the plants, and pick raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and herbs. “If you sit amongst the plants, you will learn,” said Kay. “It won’t be forced. Our ethos is not about doing this to people, it’s working with them.”

Joining in

East Marsh United Community Group member and local resident Rachel enjoys the church’s gardening club. She added: “When you are digging away or planting it gives you a chance to switch off, it’s so good for my mental health.”

We have to be able to see that the natural world is beautiful, and the artificial world isn’t always working as well as it might for us. If we can talk enough about that, people will see things differently.

The enterprise shows that lives can be improved by simply enhancing the environment and naturally, people will come together, join in, and benefit from the changes.