GLEBE: A church in Glebe has been helping the poor and vulnerable in the community for years, but the pandemic has revealed a surprising new group in need.
St John’s Church provides emergency assistance through its Glebe Assistance Partnership Program (GAPP).
The Anglican church has been running the program for 15 years, helping people with budgeting, utility bills, food, clothing and advocacy.
Senior Minister Mark Wormell said when lockdown started, the church was expecting to see greater demand for their services, however, that wasn’t the case.
“A lot of our clients are on Jobseeker and, for some of them, they’ve got more money than they’ve ever had; they’re pretty happy from a financial point of view,” he said.
“Some people that we saw regularly for financial assistance we haven’t seen as much. We see them socially, or on the street, but they haven’t had that need.”
However, the church has seen a need arising among international students.
“They have no government support whatsoever, they haven’t been able to leave the country, and they’ve really been hung out to dry,” Mr Wormell said.
“Normally we wouldn’t provide them with food parcels and that type of thing because they’re not on Centrelink, but simply because of the need we have been providing them with food parcels when the need arises.”
The suburb of Glebe has a mixed sociodemographic, Mr Wormell said. There are a number of large houses with wealthy people in Glebe Point, but half of the suburb is made up of social housing.
St John’s, which has been in Glebe for 150 years, sits in the middle of the two.
“Right the way back to the 1870s, the church has been involved in providing support to the poorer people of Glebe,” Mr Wormell said.
“When we go back through all of our church records, we can see that ministries that provide support for the disadvantaged have been going on here since the place started.”
GAPP was initially self-funded by the church and its members, but it eventually received funding from the government and then Anglicare.
“It’s probably the biggest emergency relief program that any Anglican church runs in Sydney,” Mr Wormell said.
“The biggest and most useful thing that we do is to provide a place where people can meet to talk and catch up with their friends.”*
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*Covid-19 related restrictions apply.
