Staff Stories: Lesley Corner - Project Manager, Emmaus Colchester
"When I first read about Emmaus, I thought 'well you can't argue with that'. Everything about the project made sense - housing homeless people, giving them a job and training, getting them off benefits and working to support themselves, helping others, saving the environment, providing low-cost furniture … and that was for starters. And if I couldn't argue with it, then funders and other supporters shouldn't want to do so either.
Now I'm firmly ensconced - four years later - I still get a kick out of promoting our cause and having unshakable answers to people's questions and, sometimes, their objections.
And it's not boring. In one day I can speak to a homeless person who wants a train fare to get to a Community, the managing director of a company about possible sponsorship, a secretary of a charitable trust about their criteria for grant giving, a local reporter looking for a story, a young person doing a project about homelessness, an older person wanting to volunteer as a bookkeeper .....
Emmaus is an exciting place to be and never stuck in one mould. While the Communities and emerging Groups are run according to local needs and are usually at different stages, we all work and have fun together in our commitment to Emmaus and the people it serves."
