Laurence Wareing discovers that the Wooler Warm Hub is just what the Northumbrian town needed

The market town of Wooler is settled at the edge of the Northumbria National Park. It is not without its facilities; it has shops, pubs and cafés. Nevertheless, as energy prices soared in 2022 and the cost of living crisis really began to bite, this community of about 1,400 still needed a place where folk could come and be warm, eat well, and not worry about the pennies. Wooler United Reformed Church became that place.

The congregation had already created a cosy meeting space within the congregation’s historic, listed building. However, the arrival of Fliss Barker as Church-Related Community Worker helped bring a new focus to the task of showing that God cares for all.

In the Wooler Warm Hub, the starting point was to offer soup and a roll three times a week. The meals, completely free of charge, became the heart of a service to the community that ran from October to March, with seed funding from Community Action Northumberland. But as folk began gathering more regularly – those with a church connection, those with none – it became clear that the Hub was addressing not only issues of rising bills and food poverty; it was also providing a welcome response to isolation and loneliness….

Wooler Warm Hub was awarded £2,000 in the 2023 United Reformed Church Community Project Awards, sponsored by Congregational.

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This is an extract from an article published in the November 2023 edition of Reform

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