At present Gram operates alone with a small amount of volunteer effort towards administration etc.
But he has a vision. Sowing Seeds Ministries has a clearly defined growth plan, which requires your help to make it happen. Sowing Seeds Ministries has been registered with the Charity Commission in London. Now the real work starts.
This is how your financial support will begin to make a difference;
2007/8 – In the next twelve months Gram wants to raise between £50,000 and £100,000. This would enable several key developments to take place;
- He would employ a part-time administrative assistant for one day a week to deal with the paper work.
- He would take on a full time, fully qualified, Youth Worker to accompany him to Hassockfield Secure Training Centre and help focus the important work there. This would include organising football tournaments for those inside, arranging visiting workshops in arts, crafts and life skills such as how to handle money through opening bank accounts etc., cooking skills and the importance of taxing and insuring a motor vehicle including where and how to do it!
- Grow the number of representatives from churches in the Tees Valley involved with Sowing Seeds Ministries from the present six to fifty.
- Secure rented accommodation in the Eaglescliffe area to provide a halfway house in the short to medium term for ex-offenders who have reached a certain level of understanding during an Alpha Course.
2008/9 – The financial target is increased to £100,000 to £150,000 from regular small contributions and large one-off grants. This would enable us to;
- Increase the amount of administrative support.
- Increase the number of halfway houses.
- Employ a full-time Charity Activity Co-ordinator to link between Gram, the Youth Worker and all the outreach work underway at Prisons, Young Offender Institutions, Churches etc.
2009/10 – The financial target is £200,000 from regular small contributions and large one-off grants.
Increase the number of halfway houses further.
Employ a full-time Relocation Officer to establish links with local employers and monitor the return of ex-offenders to the wider community, establish a twelve month programme to help those coming out of jail readjust to society.
Increase the number of assistants visiting jails and spreading the Ministries.
2010 on – Eventually to purchase, and provide 3 or 4 trained staff to manage and run a farm for ex-offenders. There they would learn life skills, help the more badly damaged to readjust to society at their own speed in a healthy, outdoor environment away from their roots in crime. They would have to carry out the work of repairing equipment, ploughing fields, making hay, raising cattle, pigs, sheep and goats etc.
These may seem like massive sums. But not in terms of how much it’s costing us already.
Statistics from 2002 show that in England and Wales it cost us £38,753 to keep each and every person in prison.
For every ex-offender Sowing Seeds Ministries helps keep out of jail, we all became a little richer – and not just financially.
There is a human cost in all of this.
To them - in terms of shattered, wasted and chaotic lives.
To us - as we struggle to cope with the rising tide of offending which threatens us, our children and our children’s children.
Help Sowing Seeds Ministries to help them and, in so doing, help all of us.
Please give generously – God Bless you all.