7/15/2023 0 Comments Torchlight flashlights![]() "We know that when Flashlight ends young people in our town will be in even greater need. ![]() He said there had been a deal with the St Ives Community Land Trust (CLT) to rent the building along with Flashlight so the beautiful United Methodist Community Church would continue to have a purpose.ĭavid, whose work and that of his wife has been recognised by both the late Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III (then Prince Charles) for their services to the young people of Cornwall, said he's tried to have a conversation with the Methodist Church for months but was only given a two weeks' notice from Easter Saturday to vacate when he says the church has refused to engage in any conversation for months.Ī mural in St Ives which was done with help from Flashlight, a local youth and community based organisation devoted to supporting young adults and teenagers of the St Ives and surrounding area (Image: Greg Martin / Cornwall Live) Yet what he is most annoyed about is what he calls the "underhand way" the Methodist Church as gone about it all. He said he would have liked Flashlight to continue to operate out of the Bedford Road Methodist Church but work to repair it would have been to costly to undertake on its own as a small youth organisation. "I was really concerned about the vulnerability." "Flashlight was born to meet a need and the need then was that there were young people in the town who were out until very very late and two of my foster kids were them," said the 74-year-old. Get our top stories delivered to your inbox every day. The has spent years fostering children alongside raising his own, all while helping others on the streets of St Ives and he knows that behind every smashed window and every graffiti mural, there is a much bigger picture. But the church seems completely oblivious to the brutality of it all."ĭad-of-three David knows all too well that St Ives can be a remarkable place but it can be a dark one too. I feel emotional just talking about it now. I have had people in tears come up to me asking when we'll reopen and where we'll go. We'll have to move and we'll be homeless. "Then they'll lock the doors, the heating and gas will be turned off and that'll be that. "This Sunday will be the last service at the church," Flashlight founder David said. Read next: Underbelly of St Ives where not everything is as rose-tinted as it seems As a result, come Sunday (April 30) they'll lock up and sell up. The Methodist Church said the congregation has shrunk to nothing in recent years and the 120-year-old building is too costly to run and would cost £250,000 to repair, money which the church and its congregation do not have. Now its very own existence and all the good work it has provided to the disenfranchised youths of St Ives over the last decade or so will come to nothing when its home, the Methodist church in the town's Bedford Road closes for good. ![]() Since its inception 13 years ago, Flashlight has helped to tackle mental health issues, alleviate social risk factors and deal with issues such as abuse or homelessness. Flashlight St Ives was founded by carers David and Katrena Peters in 2010 as a not-for-profit lifeline for at-risk young people in St Ives - one of the UK's most deprived areas. A charity which has given a helping hand to hundreds of disenfranchised young people in a seaside town seen by most as 'affluent' is about to be made homeless.
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