Mission Partner: Leatherhead Start

Mission Partner: Leatherhead Start is a unique service in Mole Valley, supporting local people who find themselves in crisis, without a place to call home. Last year we gave temporary shelter to 36 men and women, supporting them to improve their health and wellbeing and move on to more settled accommodation.

Our new garden office and counselling room was built and completed in 2020. With this build, we have released a further room to provide an additional client bedroom and counselling space.

We offer weekly professional counselling and a monthly Wellbeing Group, assisted by Chris Thorpe (pictured above with a hostel client). She worships at St George’s and this month has taken over as Parish rep for Leatherhead Start.

Chris says: The relief experienced by each person finding themselves safe, warm, fed and, perhaps most important of all, listened to is palpable. I have witnessed extraordinary life changes in those for whom insecurity, poverty and low self-esteem had become the norm.

The Hostel has taught me the worth of simple things – a bed to call your own, four walls for safety and protection and the knowledge that there is help for those at their lowest ebb. Jesus has a deep affinity for those without hearth and home. He knows too well the reality of this condition saying that “foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head”. Leatherheadstart.org.uk Chris Thorpe