This week, St Denys Church received the following acknowledgement from Southampton Street Pastors:

We are so very grateful for the donation from the congregation of £852.00 via a bank transfer on 26th September. Thank you very much for this gift, which will be a much-needed support for the work of street pastors in Southampton, and, we pray, to the people of our city.

You might know it costs around £300 to train and equip a new street pastor and we had 8 new street pastors join us in this Spring Training and we have numbers building for the Autumn training which starts on Friday, 7th October. We are putting out more patrols than ever and the night time economy is at its busiest we have ever seen. Our partnerships in the City continue to strengthen as the demands grow.

The teams are having an increasing number of encounters leading to faith conversations and prayer. In the last 12 months we have: 

Had 296 Faith conversations Prayed on 209 occasions where prayer was offered and accepted by the person Prayed on 44 occasions where it was instigated by the person Given out 22 Bibles as part of a faith conversation Seen 129 Answers to Prayer I just thought I would also share how your donation will help to equip us with so many of the supplies that we need on a regular basis. Below shows items we regularly have to purchase for use on patrols and to support patrols :- Hot chocolate powder and paper cups - made up in flasks and given to people on the street, mostly the homeless Fruit pastilles -offered to help engage with people Rape alarms Flip flops - for people wanting to take shoes off protects their feet from glass 

Directories - this is updated by us regularly to give to people needing assistance. It puts them in touch with the right charities and facilities, e.g. food banks, drug rehabilitation, soup runs, debt advice, addictions advice, etc (attached in case it is of interest) Bibles - regularly given out as a result of faith conversations with people Protective gloves, other PPE and first aid kit equipment Space blankets - to keep people warm and protect modesty, particularly when awaiting an ambulance or lift Tissues, wet wipes and alcohol gel to clean people up where needed and for hands Thermal space blankets – these offer more protection from the cold and keep heat in Sick bags - which, in some cases, means a taxi has agreed to take someone as their cab is protected adding someone to get home safely Street Pastors cards to explain who we are and give info to contact us Torches to search out people in the parks and hi-light glass to be swept up plus batteries Dust pans and brushes to sweep up glass Mobile phone costs (12 phones for night-time, community and school patrols) to keep in contact with base and report in what the teams need prayer for to the Prayer Team Radios for night time patrols Uniform and training costs DBS checks Office costs to support over 140 volunteers We have expanded to have each week 3 night-time patrols, 1 Evening Community patrol, 3 Daytime City Centre patrols and 4 Afternoon Community patrols around schools (term time only) going out so supplies need to be topped up regularly.

As you can see, your support will enable new and existing volunteers to take up and continue their work of listening, caring and helping on the streets of Southampton in the city centre and in community areas around the suburbs. Thank you very much for your support of Southampton Street Pastors.