‘We are blessed to have you in our town’

SDLP councillor Stephanie Quigley was speaking last week at Cloonavin as Ricky Wright, Director of Vineyard Compassion spoke to members.

Ricky revealed that last year 21 tonnes of food was donated by the public to their Foodbank, and that this provided 14,832 meals to local families in need.

The Director highlighted the twenty different projects that the charity provides to the public including debt counselling, a drop in centre and the food and clothes banks.

Ricky said: “In 2014, 239 people were given emergency clothing through our ‘wear house’ clothing bank. To date, our CAP Debt Centre has now processed over £2.5 million pounds of debt for clients. During 2014, 20 people were housed within our Compassion Housing programme, and last year our Vineyard Market raised over £28,000 of funds for the charity with over 29,000 visitors attending the event throughout the year.”

Members were quick to praise the 500 plus volunteers involved with Vineyard.

SDLP councillor Stephanie Quigley said: “It is amazing that we have an organisation like yourselves, we are blessed to have you in our town.”

Mayor, councillor George Duddy said that he had met a number of people who had benefited from Vineyards projects.