I have the privilege every day to work with those within our community that are vulnerable, forgotten and marginalised - I am the manager of the Bristol Methodist Centre (BMC).

The BMC is a Homeless Day Centre in Bristol where we offer the homeless and vulnerable within our community hospitality, care, guidance and support whilst also addressing many of their personal needs which include access to showers, computers, breakfast and lunch, a clothing store, outreach support, 1:1 advice and help, health services, charging facilities and a lending library - whilst also providing activities such as a pool table, table tennis, screenings of films and gardening.

With the outbreak of the Corona Virus we have been trying our hardest to stay open for as long as we can whilst also trying to ensure our guests and staff remain safe.

It has impacted us all - but it will hit the hardest on the homeless community, who can't self isolate, who have nowhere to sleep at night, who don't have the security of locking a door and riding it out, people who will shortly have no access to food and washing facilities - as other services begin to close as we enter lock-down.

On the 19th of March we were forced to close our doors to ensure that our guests and staff remain safe (with many of my staff and volunteers having underlying health conditions / or looking after those who do) - we have this past week been serving over 160 homeless people (each day) breakfast and lunch and that is a lot of people in a large, but still enclosed space. So action was needed to help protect our guests who in the majority have underlying health conditions themselves. We decided to close our doors on Thursday the 19th to ensure safety to our guests and staff / volunteers - but not before we gave all those in attendance survival kits. Bags which included food, and other essentials for the coming days.

We don't want the homeless community to feel that they have been abandoned again and so we have decided to change the service and continue to offer our guests access to the things they need most at this most challenging of times.

We are going to be running relief days each week during this ongoing crisis - guests will be able to come to the centre, where we will be running a door service. They will continue to receive freshly made food to take away, whilst we will also be able to equip them with other essential items they may need, clothing, hats, gloves, hot drinks, shoes, tents, sleeping bags and many other items.

These relief sessions will be taking place from the 30th March and will continue every Monday until we can return to our usual service - it will also give us the opportunity to keep in contact with the many guests who use the service and check that they are okay.

The reason for starting this page was to try and keep funds coming in to the Methodist Centre - we are largely funded by contributions from churches and also individuals that have taken our project to heart. With the churches currently suspending services across the country we are concerned that the funding we rely on to keep the centre running and helping those in most need, might become stretched.

We are aiming to be feeding well over 150 guests each relief day, whilst also giving out a huge amount of donated stock (food, clothing, sleeping bags etc) like never before - we want to make life as easy as it can be for those in our community that have nothing, so please, I encourage you to donate, to be part of this movement that will help those that have nothing and feel that they have not been deserted during this most troubling time. That your giving and support will help those who are homeless feel as if people see them, and that in this chaos - we are all trying to help.

You can check out the work of the Bristol Methodist Centre here .