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Leaflets helping to put Norfolk parish on the map

Parishioners at of Our Lady of the Annunciation in Poringland are putting the parish on the map by delivering a welcome leaflet to thousands of homes in the fast-growing village. Barbara Hammond, OLA Parish coordinator for evangelisation, reports.


We are here to share God’s love with you – this was the message sent out to all new homes, built within the boundary of the Parish, in the form of a welcoming leaflet, produced by the Missionary Parish of Our Lady of the Annunciation.

An evangelisation team, newly formed in 2019, which invokes inspiration from the Holy Spirit, undertook the project to produce a Parish leaflet that would put our Parish church firmly on the map.

It was in response to the prompt in an article in Catholic East Anglia in June 2019, entitled ‘Can you help welcome the stranger to your church’ written by Rebecca Bretherton, EA Diocese Evangelisation Coordinator. 

The article highlighted the fact that Catholic churches are not very well advertised; and as our beautiful church is tucked away behind houses in Poringland, off the beaten track, it was felt appropriate that we set about informing newcomers to the area, visitors and established residents, that we are here with a warm welcome for them.

Our parish Priest, Fr Padraig Hawkins, was in agreement with the project and Rebecca Bretherton provided advice on how to apply for funding via the Home Mission Development Office and with God’s blessing we were granted a generous £500 funding from the St Faustina Fund, which paid for professional printing of the leaflets. 

The then Parish Priest of Sheringham and Cromer, Fr Denys Lloyd, kindly posted a copy of their Parish leaflet to us, having already ventured out in distributing Parish leaflets to new housing estates in their area; and we adapted their leaflet design to suit our needs, to advertise our Parish.

The next phase of the project is to deliver the leaflets to all homes within our Parish boundary and also to various sites, such as notice boards, guest houses etc. where visitors to the area may enquire about a local Catholic church.

This project has helped to bond our evangelisation team. We are also blessed with a Parish community which offered intercession prayers and volunteers to deliver the leaflets, making it a whole Parish event.

With God’s blessing, the leaflets will inspire, newcomers, visitors, lapsed Catholics and potential converts to our fold, to share God’s love with us. Evangelisation enquiries; evangelisation@rcdea.org.uk

Pictured above, leaflets are handed over to parishioners who volunteered to deliver them.

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