Cheap Street Church’s Pod, created to serve

The Pod is a bright and welcoming space that provides information, charity links, donations and items for sale in Sherborne, West Dorset. It connects people and lets them share their stories and challenges.   

The Pod is run by an interfaith and ecumenical team that works five days a week. Lynn, a volunteer, says, “It has put the church more in touch with what is going on in the town. It is amazing to see God at work.” 

The idea came to Lynn during the pandemic when she could not volunteer as much as before. She brainstormed and wrote a proposal using the Methodist Church toolkit. She based the proposal on how Our Calling could be the starting point for what they wanted to do at the Pod. 

More than actively helping refugees, Cheap Street Church wanted to help its community rather than make money. So the team chose to use one of its two rented spaces for charitable work. Lynn recalls, “At the beginning, Penny and I were worried that it would not take off, but what happened is far more than what we set out to do.” 

The concept is a success, with 25 interfaith and ecumenical volunteers (half of them from Cheap Street Church) working to make it an essential space in the community. Open five days a week and easily accessible from the street, the Pod is multi-faceted, offering information, links to local charities and raising money through donations and selling items. 

People come and drop off bottle tops to raise money for the air ambulance, goods to help the refugees, knitted items for the local hospital’s baby unit and more. Most importantly, this is a place where people can come, have a chat and share their joys or sorrows if they want to. 

The volunteers have built trust and friendship with the local community over the past two years. A large library in the Pod offers visitors a collection of second-hand Christian books to borrow. Lynn says, “Sometimes people ask us to pray with them. It happens naturally and they feel good about it.” About 260 Bibles have been given away since the Pod opened. 

The Pod has welcomed more than 6,000 people in the past two years and raised a lot of money for various charities. Their window displays change regularly, highlighting different causes and groups in need.