Children's Young People and Families Minister Debra Hill and her group of volunteers have been serving families with pre-school children very well in the school summer holidays. Every Thursday morning she has been running a "Story Time with the classics" session at Whittington Church at 10am.
Especially in the school summer holidays when other groups stop, families really appreciate groups that continue to run and offer safe spaces for their little ones. Debra has seen a lot of engagement with this Story Time group, running at Whittington Church (St Phillip & St James parish Church). Some of the families attending are new families who have not come to anything at the church before.
Debra said:
"The church congregation have been very supportive and with the help of some of them, including David and Liz Chestney, we have been able to host this group on Thursday mornings."
"The stories we have done are 'The Tiger who came to tea', 'Elmer', The Gruffalo' and this week we will have 'Guess how much I love you'."
"We follow a simple format. I read the story, and then do a brief 'God slot', talking about how the story relates to God and key Christian messages. This is then followed by a craft related to the story. Afterwards we have refreshments."
"We have met some new families from the village and the new estate through this group. We had a lovely moment, when two children who didn't know each other, met there for the first time and discovered they will be starting at the same school in September - so it's wonderful that we were able to play a role in them striking up a friendship here. They'll both now have someone they know to play with on their first day of school!"
