CANON GILL HILL: Angels are a powerful symbol of our church

Jess Peett and her sister Chloe from All Saints Church, Catherington, with paper angels

It was an idea from children that helped to launch our appeal for refurbishment.

Youngsters from All Saints Church, in Catherington, created some paper angels to hang on our Christmas tree, which sparked an innovative fundraising idea.

Now the congregation has created 2,000 Appeal Angels – each emblazoned with the church’s Just Giving web page – which we gave away at our carol services over Christmas.

We hope it will help us to raise £150,000 towards a project to refurbish our church.

New flooring, new heating and repairs to our Lady Chapel are high on our priority list.

It all started during a service before Christmas, when we heard about plans to install new heating and flooring, and to renovate our beautiful building.

Our Sunday Club members, who meet during our 9.30am service, tell the congregation at the end of each service what they have learned.

After this service, they brought in angels they had made, to be hung on our Christmas tree.

Afterwards, when we were discussing fundraising ideas, it was suggested that we could make hundreds of Catherington Angels, and give them away at our Christmas services to publicise our refurbishment appeal.

Angels are a powerful symbol of our church, as we have a medieval wall painting of St Michael the Archangel on the wall of All Saints.

Our appeal is designed to bring our 12th century church into the 21st century with renovations that will make it warmer and more comfortable.

The idea is to make the church building itself more flexible for use by schools, community groups and choirs.

We’re looking at installing a new heating system, as the church is often too cold.

We also hope to replace the flooring tiles, install a disabled ramp, and use portable furniture to make the space more flexible.

The £450,000 project is already being supported by a legacy worth £200,000 from a much-loved worshipper Tom Sweeney, who died recently.

We hope to find grants from other bodies too, leaving around £150,000 to be raised in donations and fundraising events.

If you would like to donate to our appeal, do check out our Just Giving page on justgiving.com/crowdfunding/ascangel, which has already raised more than £2,000. We’ve also launched Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts.

All Saints Church is in Catherington Lane, Catherington. For more information go to allsaintsandstjames.weebly.com.