We did it!!

Mother Andi Hofbauer, vicar of St Aidan's Church in Leeds and Sarah Rutty Headteacher of Bankside Primary School, in the parish of St Aidan's, completed our mini-pilgrimage on Tuesday 21st, walking in the footsteps of the original St Aidan, to raise money for essential parish work to maintain the fabric and ministry of the church.

After visiting the shrine of St Aidan, we followed St Oswald's Way to walk from the Holy Island of Lindisfarne to Bamburgh, on our 20 mile mission to raise money to continue his mission to feed the homeless, look after the poor and spread the message of Christian love and compassion.

This will help provide food parcels and cooked meals for our Foodshare work on Sundays. It will help fund the work of our weekly PAFRAS drop-in sessions for people seeking asylum and refuge in inner city Leeds. It will pay for some of the resources needed for our ESOL classes, teaching English to newly arrived Leeds citizens and refugees.

We need to protect this work as we face a very unexpected bill of £20,000 to rebuild the east end apse wall. This wall which keeps a roof over our head (literally!) also supports one of the most lovely and precious mosaics designed by Frank Brangwyn for the church in 1916. A bit of background is provided by this link for you to find out more about this extraordinary depiction of the life of St Aidan by this very famous artist. We need to sort out this vital building work, to preserve this amazing piece of artistic heritage and keep the church building safe, whilst keeping the daily work of the parish in business.

Thank you to all our friends who have already supported our effort through your kind and loving donations. You helped keep us in good heart and cheerful spirits across the day! And a very special thank you to Ros Lehany, who was our fantastic support driver, towel-provider and fellow walker across the sands to the Priory and also to Carolynne and Barrie Pepper for making the journey all the way to cheer us on at the end of the day!