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‘O that today you would listen to God’s voice harden not your hearts’
These were the words that Nannette put up in the centre when it first opened in October 1982. Nannette did not literally expect God to speak to her directly but having been in religious life for over 30 years and having prayed and studied scripture for all of these years, she knew that love for the poor was at the heart of the Christian message and that our role as Christians was to see how best we can respond TODAY to those in need.
Nannette was 56 when she started the Manna Centre in 1982. She had been a Catholic nun for over 30 years and had just come back from Zimbabwe where she had lived through the War of Independence. As Nannette says herself when she returned to the UK, she was a broken woman and in a dark place. She was shocked by the poverty and number of rough sleepers she seen on the streets of London.
Being a RC Sister, she turned to the RC church for help. She approached Bishop Henderson and asked for a building. The bishop understandably asked what she would do with it & Nannette said that God would show her! The bishop being a man of faith himself gave Nannette an old nursery school, 6 Melior Street. The building was quite run down with a leaky roof, but Nannette opened the doors and homeless men from two nearby hostels started coming in – 147 Tooley Street (now a theatre) & Great Guildford Street.
Nannette had no money, no business plan nor any full time workers when she opened the doors. She felt called by God to respond to those in need and trusted that God would provide. For the first 3 years of the Manna Centre’s existence no one received a wage. It was run by volunteers who committed to work in the centre for 12 months and claimed unemployment benefit whilst doing so.
By 1986 we were still getting free bread and rolls from Ticino Bakery in Bermondsey Street which we used to collect in a shopping trolley every morning. It was probably 1987-88 before we provided more than a mug of soup and a roll. In the early days we were literally a soup kitchen.
To date I have emphasised Nannette’s Christian faith which for her was the driving force for all that she did, but I would like to make it clear that you do not have to be a Christian to have a concern for the poor. Although our foundations are very much Christian & the Christian community has been a very loyal supporter of our work over the years, we have also been supported by those from other faiths and those who do not profess any faith. As Jesus himself said, ‘it is not those who call be Lord, Lord, who will enter the kingdom of heaven but those who DO the will of my Father’.
It is because others shared Nannette’s belief in the dignity of every human being that the Manna Centre has been able to continue to operate for the last 40 years. For the best part of the last 40 years we have:
- Operated continuously, opening 51 weeks of the year
- And since 2003 opening 7 days a week
- We have always provided a very reliable service & have only closed twice once, for a 3 months’ period in 1990 when we built a new kitchen and toilet block at the old centre & for the first two weeks of April 2020 when Covid began.
In addition to the MC, the Manna Society has also had another two shorter-lived projects. One was a dry house in Hampstead called Manna House which ran for 9 years from July 1987 to March 1996 and the second was a residential project in Fulham called Farm Lane. Farm Lane began in 1989 & ran until 2005. It went through a number of reincarnations. It began as a Basic Christian Community, then became a project for refugees before becoming a residential project for Filipino Migrant workers. Nannette was the sole worker throughout the 16 years that we had Farm Lane. Nannette was the person who was solely responsible for us acquiring both properties, Manna House in Hampstead & Farm Lane in Fulham.
For those of you who have met Nannette you will know that she was a very persuasive person. I believe she was so persuasive because she was a 100% genuine, she believed passionately in God’s love for the poor. When she spoke, she never used notes and spoke from the heart. Those of you who have heard her speak will know that she was a truly charismatic speaker.
Returning to Nannette’s early sign in the centre, ‘O that today you would listen to God’s voice, harden not your hearts’, the Manna Centre has always tried to be open and responsive to the changing face of those in need. In the early days our clients were predominately Irish & Scottish.
By the mid-2000s with the expansion of Europe, many of our clients were from Eastern Europe. In response to this we employed a Polish speaking worker to advise these clients on their housing and welfare rights. By September 2010, nearly 50% of our clients were Eastern Europeans.
In the last few years, we have seen an increase in the number of African clients using our services. A week ago, today (Wed 19th October 22) we did our bi-annual snap survey of who is using our services on any particular day and found that 17% of the 117 people who came last week were Africans. The number using our Housing & Welfare advice service is even greater. In September, 35% of clients were of African heritage & 18% were refugees. ‘O that today you would listen to God’s voice, harden not your hearts’.
Over the last 40 years we have had the privilege of helping 1,000s of people at a time in their lives when they are going through great hardship. For some, the fall into destitution will be very short lived but unfortunately for many poverty will accompany them throughout their lives. This is not surprising when we realise that one in four of those in care become homeless later in life. They have never had the security of a stable home and that insecurity follows people throughout their lives.
The Manna Centre has only been able to help so many people in need because of the three following reasons:
Firstly: Nannette’s strong belief that she was called by God to help those in need and that God would help her in doing so. If you said to N that she was responsible for setting up the MC she would reply that ‘God built the house’.
Secondly: The RC Archdiocese of Southwark who have provided us with premises throughout the 40 years of our existence
Thirdly and most importantly, you, our supporters. Without our supporters providing us with the food, clothing & finance that we needed throughout the years, nothing of what has occurred in the last 40 years would have happened. So, on behalf of the many 1,000s who have benefitted from your generosity please accept my thanks. Thank you.
26/10/22