A Cwmbran coffee morning has been running for almost 50 years and raised tens of thousands of pounds for good causes

A coffee morning in a Cwmbran church has been running for almost 50 years and raised tens of thousands for charities and good causes.

Ann Ziomek, 78, has been involved in Hope Methodist Church in Pontnewydd all her life. She thinks they started the first weekly meeting every Friday from 10am to 12pm after her daughter was born.

She said: “We originally started the coffee morning because my daughter was in hospital and they needed microwaves. We decided we would run a coffee morning to get money for the microwaves. And then it just kept on.” That first fundraiser was for the now-closed St Lawrence Hospital in Chepstow.

Ann said: “We’ve been doing it every Friday, except Good Friday, and this year it’s Friday 23 December so we will probably give that a miss. Every coffee morning, we’ve always had a project. And the money we get from that (any donations) goes to a charity, and 10% of our collection (from the Sunday service) goes to the same charity.”

She said over the years they have supported local appeals like helping a young boy who needed a hearing aid and a young girl with cystic fibrosis as well as national appeals like the Welsh Air Ambulance. A poster on the wall shows the name of every project they supported from 1995 to 2015.

Over those 20 years, the coffee morning and church services led to total donations of £49,891.33. So you can add at least another 25 years of donations and imagine the total amount that the church has given to good causes.

a poster shows how much a church raised for local charities — The church raised almost £50,000 in one 20-year period

Ann said: “We have a meeting and so many people put the project forward and then we vote on it. I’ve been here since I was a baby and that was nearly 80 years. I’m 79 next birthday. I’ve been here a long time.

“We can get up to 30 people at the coffee morning. We get people who’ve been to the dentist or got to wait an hour and they think ‘I’ll come in for an hour.'”

During 2022 they have been raising money for Mercy Ships, a “faith-based international development organisation that deploys hospital ships to some of the poorest countries in the world, delivering vital, free healthcare to people in desperate need.”

Dave Tingey, local preacher at Hope Methodist Church

Dave Tingey, a local preacher at Hope Methodist Church, said everyone was welcome at the coffee morning and their services. He said their coffee morning had been extended by 30 minutes to become a warm space and offer more time for local people to pop in for a cuppa and a chat.

The church’s Christmas Day service is from 10am to 10.30am. Every Sunday they hold a service at 10.30am. Everybody is welcome.

a coffee morning poster — Everyone is welcome to the coffee morning at Hope Methodist Church

Hope Methodist Church — The coffee morning is held in the hall at the back of the church. The entrance door is on Chapel Street

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