Street Angels Chester Awarded £10,000 Grant to Support Night-Time Safety Initiatives

Street Angels Chester, a local church-led initiative dedicated to providing care, support, and safety to people enjoying Chester’s night-time economy, has been awarded a £10,000 grant through the Nationwide Colleague Grant scheme.

The funding will directly support the projects ongoing work on the streets of Chester, enabling volunteers to provide vital first aid, emotional support, and practical help to vulnerable individuals during weekend nights and key events such as the Chester Races enabling the longer-term sustainability of the project.

The Nationwide Colleague Grant scheme empowers Nationwide employees to nominate and support local charities and community projects that make a tangible difference in their local areas, an opportunity seized by Rachael Guinness, who volunteers with Street Angels Chester.

Gary Wootten, Project Leader, said:

"We are immensely grateful to Nationwide and its team for choosing to support Street Angels Chester with this generous £10,000 grant. Our volunteers work tirelessly every weekend to keep Chester's night-time streets safe, welcoming, and compassionate. This funding will allow us to offer our volunteers further training, run campaigns in partnership with other organisations, engage an independent evaluator and ensure that we have enough stock for the year. We can’t thank Rachael enough for nominating us.”

Rachael Guinness, employee in the Risk Function at Nationwide added:

“I applied for this colleague grant because I volunteer for Street Angels Chester. I was thrilled to read the news that £10,000 had been awarded, as it will support the vital work that Street Angels does in the Chester community, and will deliver lasting impact and a huge difference where it is needed.”

About Street Angels Chester:

Street Angels Chester is a church-led initiative working in partnership with local police, Cheshire West and Chester council, local businesses, and the community to make Chester city centre a safer place on Friday and Saturday nights. Teams of trained volunteers walk the city streets into the early hours, caring for, listening to, and offering practical support to anyone in a vulnerable or difficult situation.

You can find out more here:

https://www.streetangelschester.co.uk/

Street Angels is a churches-led street roaming welfare service on weekend nights in the city centre to prevent, reduce the risk of, and help deal with the aftermath of health harms, crime and anti-social behaviour. It works alongside licence holders, police, NHS and other specialist services to signpost and practically help people in need.

ROC Angels founded Street Angels in the UK and their website is: 

www.streetangels.org.uk 

Vineyard53 is a Chester city region Christian community and host the Street Angels Chester project. Their website is:

www.vineyard53.org

Pictured from left to right - Rachael, Nationwide Colleague and Andrea, Project Administrator.