At Wymondham Baptist Church we have a heart for the needs of the community. We believe we are faith based but not faith biased. In 2017 we opened the Roots Community Café. Over the years since that time the café has grown and quite often we have in excess of 100 people visiting the café. Roots is not just a café, our volunteers are there to help those who come in. They do not just serve coffee, cake, breakfasts and snacks they give a warm welcome to everyone, listen and chat with those who come in, offering care, support and encouragement. The café is open on Wednesday and Friday mornings from 10.00a.m. to 1.00p.m. Everyone is welcome from mums with babies and toddlers to those in their nineties. On Friday morning the Foodbank also operates from the church and a representative from Shelter is also present to offer help and advice. On Tuesday afternoon a youth café called Thrive@Roots also runs and offers a safe space for secondary school children from the local high school to ‘hang out’, do their homework on laptops that we have been provided with and chat with those volunteers who help at the youth café. Whenever the café is open we also offer a ‘Pay It Forward’ board which can be used by anyone who can’t afford to purchase a drink or a snack. This is funded by other attendees of the café and by external donations.

We also offer a warm and friendly space on the second and fourth Thursday afternoon of each month. Hot drinks, warm snacks and friendship is offered for free. There are board games to play, jigsaw puzzles to do, puzzle books to complete and always someone to chat with.

On Friday evening we welcome young people at secondary school to spend time together, playing games, taking part in fun activities and sharing time in a safe space.

On Sundays we have worship that is open to everyone. Our vision is to be ‘an authentic church with a place for everyone’.

As well as activities organised by the church members we also make our premises available to Rosedale for their bereavement courses and regular follow on sessions and to a local Ukelele group. We engage in town activities like Vintage Day and Wynterfest and are a centre for the regular litter pick sessions. We have ourselves run events when we have been able to invite members of the community to join us – like Seed Swap, Tools with a Mission collection.

We want to do more for our local community, but we are restricted by the sort of accommodation that we currently have. Our building is over 100 years old and although we have worked hard on making the external area and internal facilities more welcoming we need to open up the building and bring it into the 21st century.

Last summer (2023) we had a major leak in our kitchen and we decided instead of just patching up the kitchen to look to the future and we took the decision to completely refurb and update the kitchen. This was the first step to on this part of the vision that we have to open up our facilities and bring them into the current century.

We have secured planning permission for the project and now are hoping to move forward to get the building drawings prepared and actually starting digging. We are making applications to grant making bodies and we are wanting to raise as much as we can ourselves to support this project.

Can you help us with this?’

www.wymondhambaptist.org