Shiloh Church

Shiloh Church has been part of the fabric of Guernsey's community for many years, but over the last five years its reach has grown significantly. What began as a place of Sunday worship has evolved into a busy community hub responding to some of the Island's most pressing social needs. At its heart is a simple but powerful approach: listen.

That listening started with a community café, set up on a Wednesday morning to see whether local families would come. They did, almost immediately. "It was an overnight success," says team leader, Chrissy Salmon. "And it gave us the opportunity, more than anything, to listen. To hear what support was actually needed."

From that café grew a food bank, filling a gap for families who struggled to access provisions. Then a children's clothing bank, offering school uniforms and seasonal clothes for children up to 16. Then, in partnership with Guernsey Mind, two mental health drop-in cafés on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, now run independently by Shiloh volunteers trained as mental health first aiders. More recently, as Guernsey's housing crisis has deepened, Shiloh has begun supporting people experiencing homelessness; providing hot meals, a washing machine and dryer, sleeping bags, and a care cupboard people can draw from whenever they need it.

However, the community Shiloh serves is changing. The cost-of-living crisis has brought a 25% increase in food bank use in just six months, and the faces coming through the door are shifting too. "We used to see mainly people in social housing or on lower incomes," Chrissy explains. "Now we're seeing families with two incomes but still unable to cover rent and the cost of children. A three-bedroom house here is pushing £3,000 a month. A GP visit now costs £75 upfront. These things have a massive impact." With goods and services tax on food items anticipated to follow, Shiloh expects demand to keep rising.

It was against this backdrop that the grant towards the salary of the Team Leader from Lloyds Bank Foundation arrived, and its timing proved critical. Shiloh had been funding all its community work through contributions from church members alone, spending between £50,000 and £100,000 a year. Without external support, it was facing the prospect of scaling back its activities. "Had it not been for the grant, we would have had to seriously look at curtailing our community work," says Adrian Lewis, Volunteer for Shiloh. "Instead, it took the brakes off entirely. It gave us three years of certainty, and that certainty meant we could stop firefighting and start planning."

That shift from reactive to proactive has been one of the grant's most meaningful outcomes. Shiloh has used the security it provides to strengthen its safeguarding policies, improve how it records and evidences its impact, and begin formal conversations with the Guernsey Community Foundation about expanding its model of support across the island: a network of community hubs, each tailored to the specific needs of its area, with Shiloh at the centre.

Lloyds Bank Foundation's support has extended beyond the grant itself. Shiloh's team has engaged with the skills exchange programme where they worked with bank colleagues to think strategically about where to focus their energy. They’ve also attended an event on AI tools for charities and effective outcome reporting. "It's not just a funder writing a cheque," says Adrian. "It's a partnership. The Foundation really engages with what we're doing and offers steps forward that are achievable, small things that make a real difference."

The difference Shiloh makes is most visible in the lives of the people it has walked alongside over time. One father, who a decade ago was homeless, began bringing his infant son to Shiloh's toddler group. The team became his support network. As his children grew, Shiloh gave him employment as the building's cleaner and now supports his son with one-to-one reading help from a volunteer mentor. Another regular visitor, who had been sleeping in a greenhouse and relying on daily food bank visits just to eat, has found in Shiloh a place of quiet, consistent care. Others who first came through the mental health cafés during periods of crisis are now in full-time employment.

"Life can be transformed with a little bit of help and support," says Chrissy. "A lot of the people we work with are caught in cycles, families where difficulty has always been the norm. What we want is to show them there's a different way. That the future can look bright. That there is hope."

For Shiloh, that is not an aspiration. It is what happens, every day of the week.