During February there were:

• 3 Friday night patrols and 3 Saturday night patrols
• 6 Patrols totalling 31 hours of cover involving 19 Street Pastors
• 2 pairs of flip-flops given, 13 bottles of water and 2 space blankets
• 460 lollies and Love Hearts

Here are some of the ways Street Pastors cared, listened and helped in February:

• Walked with a young lady towards her home
• Cared for a young man that had been in a fight
• Cleared lots of broken glass from the centre of Wantage

We met a young lady who was upset with a male friend who wouldn’t leave her alone. We stayed with them for a while and eventually walked with the lady towards home until she was ok to continue on her own.

Another team met a young man with blood on his face who had been in a fight and was very angry, looking for retaliation. We helped clean him up, gave him a bottle of water and chatted to him for quite a while. He told us about himself and we offered to pray for him, which he accepted. After a quick prayer he decided to go home.

We cleared up lots of broken glass in Wantage town centre and cleared up an incident of dog-fouling.

Street Pastors took part in an Alcohol Education Theme Day at King Alfred’s Academy together with other members of the Wantage & Grove Community Alcohol Partnership, which works to help reduce underage drinking and associated antisocial behaviour in Wantage and Grove. One of our aims is to work with schools in educating students (and their parents) on issues around alcohol use. We will be running this session again on 27 March, followed by a broader community event for parents, “Supporting Teenage Children” in the evening.