During March there were:

• 2 Friday night patrols and 2 Saturday night patrols
• 4 Patrols totalling 60 hours of cover involving 12 Street Pastors
• 8 pairs of flip-flops given and 17 bottles of water
• 400 lollies and Love Hearts

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

• Cared for a young lady and a young man who were unwell
• Gave flip-flops to a young man
• Helped bring calm to potentially aggressive situations

Unfortunately we were unable to patrol on two occasions during March. At the beginning of March snow and ice prevented one of our Friday teams from patrolling and at the end of March one of our Saturday teams was unable to patrol due to illness.

Our teams cared for a young girl and separately a young man, who were both unwell from too much alcohol. We provided water and wipes and made sure they had a means of getting home. In the case of the young man, some kind passers-by eagerly helped escort him to the taxi rank while we watched from a distance.

On two occasions we were able to bring some calm to potentially aggressive situations between different groups of people. And unusually for us, one of our teams gave flip-flops to a young man who had lent his shoes to his girlfriend!

Street Pastors took part in a second Alcohol Education Theme Day for Year 9 pupils at King Alfred’s Academy together with other members of the Wantage & Grove Community Alcohol Partnership (CAP). We were also part of a wider community event for parents in the evening, titled “Supporting Teenage Children” – an event organized by the CAP and broadened to include lots of organisations that work to support young people in our community. There were several seminars for parents to attend and an opportunity for parents to talk, ask questions and pick up resources.