ACT’s Speaking Volumes grants programme enables community libraries of all kinds to buy Christian books.  In 2022, we provided £40,000 worth of books to 150 libraries including providing £7k of books to all the grocery stores run by The Message Trust, to be lent out to their members. 

Not the usual library we support, you could say, but neither are these your usual grocery stores. These are Community Grocery stores currently located around the UK and run by The Message Trust in partnership with local Churches. They exist to enable families at risk of food poverty to access cheap food and grocery products, some of which would otherwise go to waste. So, for £5 annual membership, a family can shop several times a week and bring home goods worth on average £25.  Just what you need when you are one of the two million people in the UK who can't afford to eat every day[1].

Some of the food used in the stores is surplus to supermarket requirements either from overstocking, mislabelling or near its sell by date but is all perfectly useable as well as much fundraising by the charity to purchase food to ensure that member have a good, healthy choice.  “The concept was born out of the provision of hot meals and food parcels to families during Covid” explained Danielle Campsall, Chief Administrative Officer at The Message Trust, “but we soon realised there was an ongoing need to support vulnerable families”.

However, the stores offer much more than just food, they are a community hub that offers wrap around support to their members. The Message Trust operate the grocery store but local Churches run programmes such as job clubs, money management courses, healthy cooking classes, dance classes for children, exploring Christianity courses and much more. It seemed natural then, to create a space in each store for further resources, so that people attending such programmes who can’t afford to purchase books for themselves, can go to the book shelf and borrow a book to help them further.

Importantly though, they also provide that much needed space for a parent and child to read together. Shockingly, 40% of homes have no such access to books[2] and 2/3rds of young children have less than an hour a week of being read to.[3]  It’s now not uncommon apparently, to see a child on their parent’s knee absorbed in a book during a shopping visit.

Danielle says the store managers were delighted with the quality of the books saying that “the Christian biographies have been particularly impactful”. With a further six stores opening in the last year, serving more than 39,000 members (who all represent a family), the need for community grocery stores and all their support isn’t going away anytime soon. Our vision at Speaking Volumes is to make Christian literature available to those most in need - so this is a perfect partnership for reaching people we want to help.

In 2023 we want to focus on grants for Churches and organisations reaching out to vulnerable people in their communities with a social-action project. If you know of one near you consider pointing them to our website www.speakingvolumes.org.uk where we are currently (March-April 2023) open for applications.