The Gatehouse is an open door drop-in café for Oxford’s homeless and vulnerably housed, based at the St Giles Parish Rooms, 10 Woodstock Road, near the centre of Oxford.

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic this year has been a period of considerable change for us, and our operating model will continue to adapt to changing conditions over the coming months. Having temporarily shut the drop-in centre for three months and run home food delivery and remote personal support services, we finally re-opened with a takeaway café at our centre in late June. This takeaway café service will be continuing until at least the end of March 2021.

We are currently not recruiting any additional volunteers, but please keep an eye out in the New Year as we will be looking to rebuild our volunteer team again once we are able to fully open up the centre safely.

As one of the local charities selected by Oxford SU RAG we are extremely grateful for your support, which will have a significant impact on our ability to continue providing Oxford’s homeless community with essential services. One of the most direct ways you can help us at this time is to support the fundraising efforts of the RAG Committee, either by organising events with them, or by participating in their events over the coming year.

We also have an Autumn & Winter Appeal running from now until the end of March 2021, with a target of £20,000 to fund our two food provision services over that time. The JustGiving page linked to this appeal can be found here and details of other ways to donate can be found on the Donate Money page of our website. All donations, however large or small, are welcomed, and if you are able to help us promote our appeal via social media sites that would also help hugely.

More information about the Gatehouse can be found on the News page of our website. Check out our social media pages too. In addition to our long running facebook page (oxfordgatehouse) we are also active on Twitter (@GatehouseOxford) and Instagram (thegatehouseoxford). Follow us on all of these sites to keep track of the latest news at the Gatehouse.

Find out more about The Gatehouse on College’s Univ in the Community page.

Published: 17 December 2020

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