Taunton Open Door

A BIG THANK YOU to Grubs Up who each week donate a large amount of sandwiches and cooked meals to Open Door. The people we support are welcome to help themselves to the food supplied which is always gratefully received. ❤️
Grubs Up we really do appreciate your support!
https://www.facebook.com/grubsup0

After an unexpected visit from the Environmental Health Officer we have been so pleased to be awarded 5 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A big thank you to all our amazing volunteers who do such a fantastic job in our kitchen ensuring we keep to such high standards! 👏🏻👏🏻

Sadly last year one of our clients passed away. Maria was a real character at Open Door and loved by staff, clients and volunteers alike. She loved everything ‘girly’ and was always happy having a ‘make-over’ at Open Door. In remembrance of Maria her family kindly gifted a complete nail gel kit as a special treat for anyone who wanted to give it a go! Our clients love having their nails done and the one-on-one time chatting and opening up whilst being pampered. Even those not having their nails done love to have a look and join in the gossip. It’s created a real focus point for the centre bonding everyone together sharing beauty tips and talking about life in general! ❤️

We are desperately short of the following:
⭐️Men’s Joggers (size small/medium)
⭐️Men’s Hoodies
⭐️Boxer Shorts (size small/medium)
⭐️Men’s Trainers (size 9 & 10)
If you’re able to donate we really would appreciate it please.
1A Mount Street, Taunton TA1 3QB
Monday - Friday 9am - 130pm
Thank you

When your centre completely runs out of shampoo who you gonna call?! Vital Salon!
One quick phone call and a whole box of shampoo appeared an hour after! We are so grateful ❤️
Vital are kindly helping Open Door through a donation scheme at their salon and are always happy to look at other ways they can help us. We have an amazing ongoing relationship which we really do appreciate 👏🏻

We are desperately short of the following:
🫶🏻Sugar
🫶🏻Roll-on deodorant
🫶🏻Shampoo
🫶🏻Sleeping bags
🫶🏻Carrier bags/bags for life
If you’re able to help, please drop off at our lovely centre between 10am and 1pm Monday - Friday. 1A Mount Street, Taunton TA1 3QB
Thank you!

Have you seen our pink collection boxes?
Thank you to the following amazing businesses who kindly have them on display:
💗Taunton Tourist Information Centre
💗Co-op Station Road
💗The Castle at Taunton
💗Vital Salon
If you see them it’s an easy way to donate with a QR code on the side to even make a bank transfer!
Or if you would like to support us please get in touch and we can pop one to your premises ⭐️

At Open Door we’re not just a ‘soup kitchen’.
Take a look at some of the services and help we’ve provided for the 69 clients who walked through our door in July:
141 showers
90 loads of laundry
11 mental health appointments
26 Nurse consultations
24 GP referrals
466 hot meals served
And lots of hugs, tears, amazing stories and laughter ❤️

A big thank you to Cafe Dish who kindly dropped off a great selection of food and take away cups which have all been greatly appreciated 👌🏻
Our clients have access to eat-in hot breakfasts and lunchs along with a buffet table full of food they can take away with them. ❤️

Monkton Wood Academy Year 9 pupils Chantelle and Megan decided to improve their baking skills for their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award and along with donations from Delicious - Mobile Catering Van they held a bake sale with the proceeds being used to purchase roll mats, sleeping bags, a rucksack, clothes, food, toiletries and washing powder for our lovely centre.
It was such a fab surprise when we received the items.
Thanks so much!!! ❤️

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61554472474212

Could you help Open Door and be one of our amazing volunteers?
One of the tasks we deal with each week is organising the many donations that we receive. Clients love to join in and as you can see our volunteers have a great morning chatting to them with lots of entertainment as well ❤️

A big thank you to Cheddon Fitzpaine Church School whose School Council very kindly elected Open Door as their chosen charity for the past year. Charity Manager Emma visited the school this week to be presented with an amazing cheque for £400 raised by the children organising a variety of events including a water festival, Bring Your Bike To School day and Cheddon’s Got Talent 👏🏻👏🏻
Thank you so much! ❤️
Take a look at what the children got up to:
https://cheddonbwmat.org/school-council/

Thank you so much to the amazing GoCreate Taunton who popped by this week with a cheque for £342.50 which was raised from auctioning the gorgeous Christmas trees which made up the Tree Trail in December for Taunton Trails.
For those who took part in the trails and created the trees, thank you, we really do appreciate it! 🌲

Over Easter St James Players put on a sold out murder mystery performance over two nights with the profits being donated to us! We received an incredible £2030 which some of the cast brought to us whilst they had a tour of our centre to see how the money would be used.
Thank you! 🤩

The Cosy Club have kindly popped by to drop off some pastries this morning. They won’t last long on our buffet table!
Thank you ❤️

We are completely out of sleeping bags and are desperate for more!
We frequently hand out sleeping bags to our clients who are rough sleeping on the streets so any donations (second hand or new) would be more than welcome 🙏🏻
Thank you ❤️

At Open Door we provide a support centre five days a week helping our clients with practical and emotional support. They may be living rough, or in temporary accommodation without cooking facilities. Our clients are provided with hot meals, access to a buffet table full of food to take away, we do their laundry, they can charge their phones, have a shower, dry their hair, have a shave or trim their beards. We also help them with access to the council to apply for housing, liaise with the job centre to apply for benefits. They can use our address to open a bank account, speak to mental health workers, access GP’s and nurses, get their hair cut and their feet tidied up by a podiatrist. We have advocacy support, sexual health services and stop smoking visiting to chat with our clients along with SDAS for substance and alcohol abuse. Cancer and Hep C screening also take place here at our wonderful centre.
They even have a lovely time with our volunteers chatting about their lives, taking part in art workshops and playing board games.
We love what we do, what we can provide and seeing so many happy faces ❤️

Thank you so much to Eastover Primary School who very kindly spent last half term collecting donations to bring to us at Open Door.
Each class had a different item to donate which was a fab way of collecting specifics that we had asked for. The contribution has been amazing!!
https://www.facebook.com/eastoverbridgwater

Our wonderful Client Support Worker Hayley sadly worked her last day today at Open Door so an array of volunteers and staff got together last night to give her a lovely send off.
Our clients have really appreciated all the help she’s provided for them over the past year and have spent today popping in to say goodbye and even brought drawings and flowers 🥰
We wish Hayley well in her new role ❤️

We’ve received a gorgeous thank you today from a previous client who really wanted to show their appreciation! ❤️

Could you help us support the local homeless community?
We’re extremely busy and looking for volunteers who can help with the following:
👌🏻Chatting to clients
👌🏻Laundry
👌🏻Sorting donations
👌🏻General tidying of the centre
Mornings Monday to Friday only.
If you’d like to find out more please send an email to:
[email protected]

The wonderful congregation of The Redeemed Christian Church of God held a collection for our lovely centre so popped to see us with their donations and a quick look round. We’ve really appreciated the useful items they dropped off such as charging packs. Thank you! 🤩

We love visiting schools to tell them all about our lovely support centre.
Thank you Castle for having us!

Recently students in 9M had a visit from Emma Busby, who is the Manager at Taunton Open Door, a charity that helps homeless people in Taunton.

Emma spoke to the students about why people are homeless in Taunton, how Taunton Open Door helps them and how the students can help as members of the local community.

Charity Manager Emma has been busy visiting other places that provide help to the homeless. She recently visited Shekinah, a support centre for the homeless in Plymouth. Having moved to a lovely new building only six weeks ago, it was a great opportunity to see the wonderful work they are doing providing hot breakfasts, support, training, clothing, washing facilities and evening soup runs. It was a really informative visit discussing the referrals process for their clients in helping them to move onto housing and seeing how the centre runs.

St George’s Primary School held a collection for us whilst learning about homelessness which was really thoughtful. Thank you!
If your group or school would like a visit to our lovely centre please get in touch. We’d love to show you around and explain what we do ❤️

John Marshall from Medusa’s hair salon in Middle Street has come in again today on his day off to cut our clients’ hair. There’s been a queue of people eager to see John with lots of smiles and a procession of ‘before and afters’
Thanks John!

The amazing South West Councils turned up with 28 volunteers yesterday afternoon to help out at our lovely centre so we gave them lots of the jobs we struggle to find time to do!! Defrosting freezers, cleaning inside the sofa, weeding, tidying and brushing up the basement, de-scaling the urn and catching up on our enormous pile of laundry, they certainly worked hard! It was an amazing effort and so very much appreciated.
Thank you! ❤️