Tony Bennett, Artillery Arms manager, is running this year’s London Marathon on 26th April to raise money for St Luke’s Community Centre (run by St Luke’s Trust), Central Street, EC1.
St Luke’s is a charity and outstanding community resource working with the elderly and disabled as well as kids, families and local people of all ages and backgrounds in South Islington, the City and surrounding areas. Low cost social and learning activities are available as well as health and welfare advice sessions, carer support group, Job Club, community cooking classes, a community cafe open 9am-4pm weekdays and 12-2pm Sunday, plus much more. To sponsor Tony please go to www.justgiving.com/ArtilleryTony or pop in to the pub.
Note also that St Luke’s Community Centre, in conjunction with St Giles Cripplegate, is to take over utilisation of the St Giles’ Church hall in Roscoe Street.
From this year, St Luke’s Community Centre with its main facilities in Central Street aims to start offering its ever popular services and activities into the estates and halls of the local neighbourhoods in and around the Barbican. Keren Wiltshire, St Luke’s Director of Services says the Centre would like to share the knowledge, skills and partnerships it has developed and help spread that valuable sense of community spirit a welcoming and vibrant space can create.
For this reason, St Luke’s took the decision to increase its reach into the neighbourhood when the church hall on Roscoe Street, owned by St Giles’ Cripplegate, became vacant. This hall has previously been privately rented, but St Giles’ was keen for it to become a resource for its own parishioners and the wider community.
Thus, the two organisations have now come together to create St Luke’s at Roscoe Street. While the Barbican technically falls outside the area served by the original St Luke’s the new centre will also be aimed at any Barbican residents who may wish to participate as the St Giles parish covers most of the estate.
New activities and services are still in the planning stage but initial ideas include: dance classes, a new community choir, art workshops, facility for low cost children’s parties, a Food Bank, community meetings, gardening workshops, rehearsal space. As a launch programme it will be offering a free yoga class on Monday evenings from 7 pm.
St Luke’s is very excited about the potential this new centre offers to residents and optimistic it will help it to develop a successful model of community outreach work that will be possible to replicate in other local spaces.
If you would like more information about using St Luke’s at Roscoe Street or perhaps you have suggestions for services that would benefit local residents or groups, please get in touch with Keren Wiltshire at St Luke’s Community Centre on 020 7549 8188 or email kwiltshire@slpt.org.uk.
