Then and Now: 25 years of serving the homeless
1993 – 2005
Big Breakfast Plus originally started out as the Broadgreen Breakfast Club. With an initial grant of £10,000 from Swindon Borough Council, we officially launched on Saturday 26th June with the aim of serving a free cooked breakfast for homeless people two mornings a week. We were based at the Broadgreen Community Centre in Swindon, which gave the breakfast club its original name. Indeed, today it is still affectionally known as the ‘breakfast club’ by some of our regular guests.
2005 – 2017
In 2005 Big Breakfast Plus lost its funding from the local authority, along with many other voluntary organisations in Swindon at the time. With costs mounting, we started looking for a new base for the breakfast club. We were glad to find a perfect spot through Father Leslie, the Minister at St Luke’s Church which was just around the corner from the Broadgreen Community Centre. We operated out of St Luke’s Church five mornings a week.
2018-2020
In January 2019 Big Breakfast Plus relocated to The Haven on Queens Drive to support the homeless multi-agency hub managed by Swindon Night Shelter. We served breakfast 7 days a week from The Haven until March 2020 when our service closed due to guidance issued by Public Health England during the Covid-19 pandemic. During our temporary closure, we were able to support some of our guests by offering take-away food vouchers and made plans for how to respond to changes in demand for our service locally.
Big Breakfast Plus: Today
After almost two years of being closed due to the restrictions of Covid-19, we reopened our service on 20th January 2021. We provide hot breakfasts and unlimited hot drinks to those who are homeless, at risk of becoming homeless or suffering from food poverty in Swindon from our new premises at the Pilgrim Centre, Regent Circus, Swindon SN1 1PX.
We are open from 07.30-09.00 every morning.
We are happy to be working with the Central Church who are owners of the Pilgrim Centre and have welcomed us with open arms.
We need your support
30 years and who knows how many breakfasts later, we’re still here and needed more than ever. That’s where you come in…
