Announcement from the Freedom Project

The Derbyshire North East Circuit are deeply saddened to share the latest update from the Freedom Project:

"After years of serving Bolsover and beyond, Freedom Community Project will be closing due to funding challenges.

We're incredibly grateful to our staff, volunteers, funders, and supporters who made our mission possible. St Bernadette’s premises will now be closed, but food bank services will continue one day a week until further notice.

We're working with partners to ensure a smooth transition and keep support centres open in Bolsover, Shirebrook, Clowne and South Normanton.

Thank you for being part of our journey."

The Project hope to make further announcements through their social media channels in the coming weeks, including links to other local support.

Project CEO, Mark North, reflects how the vision that became the project emerged from the mission of the Methodist Church to reach into the community at Bolsover and surrounding areas:

"From the start of the project on Dykes Field in 2009 it has been a rollercoaster.

I have always believed in the vision that we set out to achieve from the start: to be a place of love and welcome, to support and never judge and to walk with people for as long as they needed. As the original strap-line said "Working together to see lives changed". I believe in a God that walked alongside the outcast and those in need, who helped the poor and marginalised. I hope and pray that some of what we achieved did the same."

We continue to pray for all those who have worked and volunteered for the Project, those who have been helped by its work, and for the legacy Freedom leaves. We will continue to work with those communities within our Circuit and show the same compassion, grace, and love that Freedom has always shown.