By Cam Lucadou-Wells
YOUR next shopping bargain could be helping fund a free meal for Berwick’s impoverished.
The newly-opened Hope Op Shop run by Winepress Church sells cheap pre-loved goods three days a week.
It will help fund the church’s The Hope Centre which provides fortnightly free meals and a Basecamp drop-in centre for people in need on Saturday nights.
The centre’s initiatives also comprise support for women in abusive relationships, and free English as a Second Language classes.
The Hope Centre co-ordinator Mick Smithers and a team of volunteers have served more than 800 meals this year.
Up to 60 people from all over Melbourne drop by for a feed, Mr Smithers said.
“The people are feeling a good sense of community and they are telling me they love the comfortable and safe environment.
“Somehow we always have enough food for everyone who comes.”
The centre’s STOP program, run by professional counsellors, helps women in abusive relationships begin to heal their lives.
A new STOP course is expected to begin in early 2017.
Its ESL classes on Sunday afternoons help about 20 enrolled new arrivals improve their conversational English.
The students have learnt “practical” language and tools for everyday living, Mr Smithers said.
The op shop is in a portable at the back of The Hope Centre, 40 Intrepid Street, Berwick. It is open Thursdays and Fridays, 10am-4pm and Saturdays, 9am-1pm.
