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 EDI 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.