Why I care about the Gatehouse ....

A brief personal thought from me, if it's alright with you ...

I was wondering to myself the other day why it is that I care about the Gatehouse - and why I want it to continue.

There are lots of things I could say.

But one of the reasons, I think, is that the Gatehouse is genuinely a community. Volunteers, guests, it's almost as if we're all in it together. In fact, whenever I'm there, there's a sense that we need each other, and that no one is more important than anyone else.

Here are a couple of illustrations that might explain it more than I can!

The first concerns our soup! Anyone who's ever been there knows, our our home-made soup is as good as you can get in any cafe in Oxford. But we don't want anyone to think of the Gatehouse as a 'soup kitchen', because that suggests that what we do is dole out help from one side of the counter to the other, from the needed to the needy.

Here's the other illustration. Andrew (our centre director) tells the story of one student who used to work with us. One day, when he was cycling down the High Street, he passed a Big Issue seller and was suprised to hear him call out his name after him in greeting.“It made my day”, he said.

Those two illustrations capture it well for me. Playing a part in the life of the Gatehouse is a two-way street: the benefits flow both ways. We’re all needed and we all have our needs.

Do feel free to comment below if your experience has been anything like mine!

And don't forget to donate to the Moving Home appeal via Sandwich Steve.