A Church Superette Pays for a Soup Kitchen and Homes for the Poor: Faith Gospel Hall’s Business Model in Rural St Thomas

• Faith Gospel Hall in York, Seaforth runs a superette to fund its welfare work
• The church built housing units on its property for indigent people
• The idea came when an elderly member could no longer pay rent on a dilapidated house
• The superette has been broken into five times and robbed twice at gunpoint

A rural church in St Thomas has gone into business to keep its outreach going. Faith Gospel Hall in York, Seaforth runs a superette, a small supermarket, specifically to fund its welfare programmes, the Jamaica Observer reported.

The superette’s earnings pay for a weekly soup kitchen that feeds 50 people. Every Saturday church members cook a hot meal with supplies from the shop and deliver it to those who depend on it. “We take food to the indigent, the less fortunate, and the under privileged,” the pastor said.

The church has also built housing on its property for indigent people. The pastor explained that the decision came when an elderly member could no longer afford the rent on the dilapidated structure she was living in. Three residents were living in the units, and a church member who is a medical doctor looks after their health. The property also hosts a residential camp for primary school students with behavioural problems, and the church runs a studio and broadcasts services on local cable.

The business side has been hard. It took several years for the superette to be registered as a non-profit, forcing it to close for six months in 2012. It has been broken into five times and held up by gunmen twice, even though most of the building is steel, and the pastor said margins are low and it barely breaks even while requests for help are rising. “One of my dreams is to build a place to take in children, children who don’t have any place,” he said, adding that more churches should adopt the model.

Faith Gospel Hall has done two things many churches only talk about: it runs a business to earn income and it has built housing on its own land for people who could not pay rent. The model has costs. Registering as a non-profit, securing the building and keeping a shop profitable all take work. But a church that owns land can put small, low-cost units on it for elderly or vulnerable members, as this congregation did. For diaspora donors, supporting a project like this pays for real buildings that go on housing people.

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